We've been silent for a long time, but we haven't been idle--and the proof is right here on my desk, in a rubber-banded pile of 1,008 loose pages.

Regular readers of The World Almanac may have been wondering, in recent weeks, why they couldn't find the new edition in their local bookstore. The answer: it wasn't finished. For the first time since the 2001 edition, we held the book open until early November... so we could pack in election returns, World Series results, and more news and notable facts from the past year.

You can pre-order now or pick up a copy on November 25, wherever books are sold.

And keep checking back here (or subscribe to the feed), because Sarah and I will be back in the swing of blogging about our favorite new features, offbeat items that didn't quite make the cut, and our experiences promoting the new edition.