A cover mystery solved

We've learned at least one thing from our 20th anniversary cover contest: our readers are smarter than we are! More than 1,200 readers took up the challenge to find the author who appeared twice in our October cover collage of 240 book jackets. Like Sherlock Holmes, we considered this an open-and-shut case: the correct answer was the late David Halberstam, a journalist and author-extraordinaire, who was represented twice with the jackets of The Fifties and The Children. Ah, but several eagle-eyed readers spotted what the editors of BookPage overlooked—a tiny sliver of Barbara Kingsolver's Pigs in Heaven was peeking through just above the numeral "2," and the jacket of Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible was also visible. That means there were two correct answers—but wait! As the contest entries poured in, a few super-sleuths noted that part of the jacket for Steve Toltz's A Fraction of the Hole was repeated on our cover, giving us a trifecta of correct answers: Halberstam, Kingsolver and Toltz. (Pardon us while we pause and reach for the smelling salts.) We would tell you that this trio was all part of a grand plan to test your reading comprehension, but, hey, we're too honest for that.

All 1,221 entries that mentioned one of these three authors were included in the final drawing and a grand prize winner was selected. Drum roll, please. The winner is:

Paul Foley, who will receive 20 new books recently reviewed in BookPage.

Congratulations to all those who entered and a special thanks to the many entrants who included kind words about BookPage and our 20th anniversary celebration. One of our favorites was this comment from reader Rita Howard: "I love your publication. Thanks for existing." In return, we'd like to thank all our readers for existing—and for keeping us on our toes!