who gets this excited over a book??!

Last week marked the start of my amazon prime membership (after hearing everyone rant and rave about it, I figured it's time to jump on the bandwagon). It's my hope that I will be able to read more with this membership (although it's my nagging suspicion that I will end up using this membership for stupid stuff like toilet paper subscriptions or something). Anywho, my first 2-day shipping order arrived today!

The original 1776 book (David McCullough) was released to some pretty good reviews, and was a best seller when it was published, which is quite an accomplishment for a history book. McCullough is a two-time Pulitzer prize winner for his books on Truman and John Adams, and this book is meant to accompany the book on Adams.

see that wide folded paper in the middle? george washington's commission into the continental army. how cool is that?!!

The illustrated edition of 1776 (arrived today) contains the original text plus some additional cool stuff. Boasting 256 pages of pure historical awesomeness (ok, I suppose awesome for me, maybe not you...), this book packs in the fun with a detailed account of the pivotal year of the war with replica historical documents, letters, and maps (and for some odd reason it was cheaper than the regular kindle version). I'm not usually one to pull all-nighters for the sake of books (although I did the other night; different book, very juicy read), but I may be tempted to do it again with this one...