A Look Back at 2007

Things are pretty quiet here at the OUP offices, most of my co-workers are away celebrating with their families and friends, and the brave few who wandered into the office today were all a bit shocked by the silence. The good news is that without all those distracting people (bah humbug!) I had time to dig through a year of blog posts and pick out my favorites, one for each month. There are of course tons of great posts that I missed but below is a good start. Happy reading!

My favorite post from January was Philip Kitcher’s Hiding From the Truth which looks at why “it doesn’t help much to thump the table and declare that Intelligent Design isn’t REAL science.” I often cite his post to authors looking for guidance on how to write a post for the OUPblog.

February brought one of the most prestigious bloggers to ever grace the OUPblog, James M. McPherson, who wrote about Lincoln’s Finest Hour.

In March we had our first “Inside Oxford” post by Evan Schnittman. While he had written for the blog before (Playing Nice With Google) the ABCs series started a discussion about publishing that I hope continues through 2008!

Every once in awhile I get a post that is perfect to send along to my mother. In April, Joyce Antler wrote a Passover post perfect for moms everywhere, Jewish or not.

In May, Lynne Viola wrote a series of posts that gave us a look into her research in Soviet archives. Viola captured the day-to-day life of Stalin’s first Gulag victims by conducting research in the previously closed archives of the central and provincial Communist Party, the Soviet State, and the secret police.

After the G-8 summit in June, Paul Collier helped us understand why throwing money at our problems does not make them go away (How the G-8 Got It Wrong: Or Why Aid Isn’t The Answer). June was also the month that Ben Zimmer started his smashingly-successful column, From A to Zimmer.

My cocktail conversation on the 4th of July was enviable because Andrew Smith, guru of American food, prepped me with a barbeque quiz.

In August, my UK-counterpart Kirsty posted the inaugural VSI column by Julian Baggini. Baggini sparked a very interesting conversation about atheism in the comments.

September was a lot of fun thanks to the folks at Jonesin’ Crosswords who helped us make a crossword to launch The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

In October, Michael Lindsay brought us inside the Evangelical world with a podcast about Bud McFarlane and Richard Nixon.

My favorite time of the blog-year is always November, when we announce the Word of the Year. Do you know what it was this year?

December brought a great excuse to ask friends of the blog to contribute. Check out their favorite books here.