THE WINNERS!
Thanks everybody who entered my giveaway! It was a HUGE success! Okay, down to the nitty gritty. Getting this ready took me hours to do, which is why I’m getting this up so late in the day and I’m sure you’ve been checking every hour.
How I determined the winners: there were 119 people entered. Way more than I ever expected. So of course, I’m on cloud nine for coming up with the best contest ever (oh wait, am I supposed to be humble about that?)! I tracked how many times each of those people left a comment on my blog between the dates of April 16th-30th. Each comment was one entry. If you blogged or emailed about the contest I doubled those number of entries. In the end there was 382 comments for a total of 503 entries. Each person was then assigned a number, that number was written down one time for each entry, I cut them up, put them in a bowl, mixed them up good, and randomly picked with my eyes closed. So here they are (imagine I’m yelling these out with tons of enthusiasm):
Trish from Trish’s Reading Nook!
(Okay, complete side note: very odd these were the first two out! Both of these lovely ladies had the best odds of winning due to their having the most entries. I had a feeling they would win, but the first two? Weird!)
Jen W.!
Heather from Age 30 - A Year of Books!
Erin from My Journey Through Reading!
Wait that’s ten?! No, I’m having so much fun drawing these names! Why not one more . .
Kathleen from Kathleen Book Reviews!
Congratulations to all the winners! I wish everybody could have won. But if you do the math, I have more than fifty books in the following list and I’m giving away 22 of them. That’s a lot of leftovers that I’m sure I’ll have to give away again. So keep coming back! Each winner gets to pick two books from the following list (all are paperback unless noted):
My Antonia by Willa Cather
Three Junes by Julia Glass
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons
The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown (1 paperback more used, 1 hardback)
Blessings by Anna Quindlen (hardback)
Empire Falls by Richard Russo (2 copies)
Tess of the D’Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenberand
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Vinegar Hill by A. Manette Ansay
‘Tis by Frank McCourt (1 hardback, 1 paperback)
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt (1 hardback, 1 paperback)
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (hardback)
Cane River by Talita Tademy (4 copies hardback)
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (3 hardback, 1 paperback)
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff and it’s All Small Stuff by Richard Carlson
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (1 paperback, 1 hardback)
All the Pretty Horses by Cormack McCarthy
Beloved by Toni Morrison (1 hardback, 1 paperback)
The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Jewel by Bret Lott
A Map of the World by Jane Hamilton
Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons
White Oleander by Janet Finch (1 movie tie in cover, 1 paperback)
White Rose by Amy Ephron (hardback)
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (some water damage, if you want this one, I’ll let you get a third book)
Gap Creek by Robert Morgan
Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (exlibrary copy)
Too Late the Phalarope by Alan Paton
The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan (hardback)
The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans
The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller (hardback)
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (ex library copy)
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
Paradise by Toni Morrison (hardback)
East of the Mountains by David Guterson (ARC)
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard
This is how I’m going to divide up the bounty. Please email me at natasha(at)mawbooks(dot)com with five choices of books (you will receive two) with your preference in descending order. I will start with the person who left the most comments, assign their books, and go down from there. This is the only way I could think to do it if everybody happens to want the same book. If I run into problems I’ll email you and let you know.
Congrats again!
I started to get disappointed I did win, but then I remembered how many books are sitting on my shelves asking me to please read them already, and now I’m just happy for the people who DID win - and looking forward to copying your contest idea in a couple of months for MY 100th post!
on May 1st, 2008 at 9:50 pmI am so excited to have one - there isn’t much I can think of that I love more than a good book…especially if it’s free. Congrats on the success:)
on May 2nd, 2008 at 4:17 amDuh, I meant won in the post above…it’s early here,lol!
on May 2nd, 2008 at 4:17 amThat was one heck of a contest!! Congratulations to all the winners!!
(the postman will be most happy to see you when you mail them all out! hehe)
on May 2nd, 2008 at 4:22 amWheee! What fun!
on May 2nd, 2008 at 5:01 amCongrats to all the winners!
What a lot of work, Natasha! How very cool of you to do!
on May 2nd, 2008 at 7:39 amWoohoo!!! Thanks so much!!!
on May 2nd, 2008 at 8:38 amWahoo! Thanks for such a fun contest.
on May 2nd, 2008 at 8:38 amCongrats to all the winners and thanks for doing this Natasha
I’m sure it was hard work for you! Enjoy your books ladies!
on May 2nd, 2008 at 10:37 amThank you! I am so excited to have won. Erin
on May 2nd, 2008 at 11:28 amWhat a terrific blog you have here! Very nice…
on May 2nd, 2008 at 1:33 pmWow I’m so excited!!!
This is a very pleasant surprise at the end of a rough week. Thanks so much Natasha for doing this.
on May 2nd, 2008 at 1:36 pmWoo hoo! I’m so excited…thank you, Natasha! And congratulations to the other winners. Going to email you now
on May 2nd, 2008 at 4:48 pmCongratulations to all the winners!
on May 2nd, 2008 at 9:12 pmCongratulations to the eleven winners!
on May 3rd, 2008 at 7:43 amCongratulations, winners! And how generous of you, Natasha!
on May 3rd, 2008 at 2:38 pmWell done in a brilliant contest!
on May 4th, 2008 at 12:10 pmThanks so much Natasha! Although I would have left all those comments contest or not–it’s still fun to win.
on May 4th, 2008 at 3:59 pmCongrats again to my eleven winners! I’ll be getting your books out in the mail as soon as I can get them all wrapped up. Hmm . . . 11 packages and two kids at the post office. Sound like fun!
Didn’t win? I had so much fun meeting new bloggers and bribing the lurkers to come out of the woodwork! I’ve got a lot more books to give away so don’t be a stranger!
on May 4th, 2008 at 9:47 pmOmg I don’t read blogs for a week because of finals and look what I missed! I can’t believe I won. I never win anything! I’ll email you asap (hopefully I’m not too late?!).
on May 8th, 2008 at 9:42 pmKathleen - I was just about to email you! I’ll be getting everything out this weekend, so no worries. I’ve never won anything either, my day will come, I just know it!
on May 8th, 2008 at 9:58 pm