IN the issue of Jan. 4, 1960, TIME will reveal the identity of its 23rd Man of the Year--the person who, for good or evil, most powerfully influenced the course of events in 1959.

TIME'S first Man of the Year was announced in the issue of Jan. 2, 1928. He was Charles Augustus Lindbergh, who eight months before had soloed the Atlantic in 33 1/2 hours. Since then, the annual choice by TIME'S editors has become a journalistic tradition. The choice is neither an accolade nor a moral judgment: Hitler was Man of the Year in 1938. Nor is a symbolic figure ruled out: the American Fighting-man was the choice for the Korean War year of 1950 and the Hungarian Freedom Fighter was chosen for 1956. There have been two Women of the Year--Wallis Warfield Simpson for 1936, Queen Elizabeth for 1952--and Mme. Chiang Kai-shek shared the cover with her husband on Jan. 3, 1938. The Man of 1957 was Nikita Khrushchev, and for 1958 it was Charles de Gaulle.

Would your choice for this year be the same as TIME'S? Send us the name of your candidate and see. If it is the same, you will receive with TIME'S compliments a special certificate testifying that you have become a member of the Honorable Order of Contemporary Historians. Just write your selection (and your name and address) on a postcard and send it to: TIME Man of the Year Sweepstakes, Box 1959, New York 46, New York. All entries must be received before Dec. 15.

ON pages 8 and 9 of this issue, TIME introduces an advertising concept that allows book publishers and booksellers to stay within their relatively modest promotion budgets, yet send their messages to TIME'S 10,000,000 readers across the nation.

Coordinated by the American Booksellers Association, the advertisement was jointly paid for by 15 publishers and 126 booksellers (the names and addresses of 63 retailers appear in each of two geographically divided lists). This cooperative venture allows the advertisers to reach book buyers in a wide area, not merely the few major book-buying centers where publishers often concentrate their selling. Says Joseph A. Duffy, executive director of the American Booksellers Association: "It is well known among publishers and booksellers that a mention of a book in TIME leads to sales. In fact, TIME'S impact is regarded as one of the two or three most potent book promotion factors in the industry."

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