First and foremost for a publishing house, of course, are the books: in the reflection bank, the books we published in 2007; in the resolutions file, those we look forward to publishing in 2008. For any of you unfortunate enough to have missed reading Beacon books this past year, here's hoping 2008 brings relief in large doses. We're really looking forward to publishing books which tackle some urgent issues in this election year.

As you know if you're reading this page, one of our new ventures in 2007 was this blog. When we launched it in Banned Books Week back in September, it was our hope to offer some interesting and provocative posts that might lead readers back to books. But after only three months, I've come to feel that the blog in and of itself is an achievement and well worth reading even if it doesn't lead you back to the printed word (though I won't deny that we all still fervently hope that it will).

So I want to take a minute to thank all of the Beacon Press authors who have contributed to the blog in 2007, and especially to thank the authors who are not (or not yet) published by Beacon for their posts.  And to thank you for dropping by to sample their contributions. Keep coming back; we're resolved to make it well worth the trip.

May your New Year be full of good reading, no matter where you find it.

Helene Atwan

Helene Atwan began her career in publishing at Random House in 1976; she worked at A.A.Knopf, Viking Press, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Simon and Schuster, before being named director of Beacon Press in 1995.  She served for eight years on the board of PEN-New England and is the Administrator of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award.