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A perplexing mystery solved
By Lynn Green
We've learned at least one thing from our 20th anniversary cover contest: our readers are smarter than we are! Hundreds of 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 overlookeda 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 answersbut 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 Whole 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 including 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, an elementary school teacher from Savannah, Georgia, who will receive 20 new books recently reviewed in BookPage. Paul tells us he enjoys reading history, biography, poetry and fiction, and that he (and his friends) will enjoy all the books he receives. Congratulations to those who managed to locate the correct authors 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 existingand for keeping us on our toes!
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