New Almanac: Wit, Improvement, Tastes, Ideas, Links

Edited by four-time National Magazine Award honoree, New Almanac applauds self-improvement and American ideals. Focus themes for the 2008 calendar year edition are Washington, D.C. and the globe.
Contributors include Vint Cerf, a father of the Internet, now at Google, on the Internet at age 30; Karen Fitzgerald, a writer and teacher in Illinois, on the pleasures of a pea patch; J.A. Leo Lemay, leading Benjamin Franklin expert, on the Philadelphian's last almanac and the Way to Wealth. There is also a profile of a USN Admiral's international efforts to monitor the planet; and a history of the model globe illustrated with a globemaker of 1684.
Exclusive innovations to manage time and goals include the Calendar of Notables. Each month is packed with birthdays of achievers from schoolteachers and top cops to inventors, adventurers, and CEOs. Hundreds of everyday heroes are a springboard for new careers, good books, and allow plenty of links to the Internet. The Wheel of Self-Fortune is a colorful center-spread chart intended to sort priorities and track progress for an entire year. New Almanac also has typical fare: original sayings, brainteasers, a poem composed of state mottos; a Celebration of Mothers; financial doubling scenarios; a few cartoons; moon tables, humor, and soothing watercolors. A lot squeezes in because there are no ads. Transformative New Year's gift for kids or adults.