February 18, 2010

Book Bleg Followup

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Just a quick note to thank everyone who recommended books in my weekend Book Bleg. The response was great, and it’s worth checking out if you’re interested in some (mainly) fiction recommendations.

So which books did I decide to try? This is necessarily a fairly random thing when you get hundreds of recommendations, but I chose three. First is Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, which broke out of the pack based on sheer number of enthusiastic recommendations, plus the fact that so many people were convinced that it was a perfect Kevin book. (We’ll see how well you guys know me!) Second is China Mieville’s The City & The City. I’ve been vaguely meaning to read some Mieville forever and somehow I never have. So now I will. Third is Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, which got several recommendations and has the look of the kind of gratuitously convoluted plot line that I get a kick out of. Part 3 isn’t available until May, though, so I’ll read the others first.

Thanks again to everyone who pitched in. I’ll probably dip back into that thread several more times before the year is out.

If you buy a book using a Bookshop link on this page, a small share of the proceeds supports our journalism.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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