WishbookWeb

As a general rule, I make it a goal to avoid talking about any of my writing projects before they’re actually finished.  I mean, why would you tell people about a story you’re working on, when your goal is to get them to read it after you’re done?  But without giving anything away, my latest work-in-progress required me to do some research into the 1990s, that lost decade of Starter jackets and Zubaz pants.  Stop shuddering… you know you miss wearing those Bugle Boy jeans and Reebok pumps.  Now thanks to the wealth of information out there on the Web, I could have easily spent entire days paging through a countless number of blogs about nostalgia, but that scattershot approach seemed a little… disorganized.  After only a short time, I found myself wishing for somewhere that all of my favorite products from yesteryear had been collected into a single, convenient place.

Fortunately, author Jason Liebig had me covered with an awesome website called WishbookWeb.

You remember the Sears Wishbook, don’t you?  Those 500+ page catalogs full of clothes, toys, and games that got delivered to every house right around the middle of autumn?  The kids in my family used to fight over our one copy, and the conflict escalated to the point where we had to actually schedule shifts in order for everyone to get a turn.  After that, all of us kids were tasked with putting together a “list of ideas for Santa”, who I guess would somehow then fill out the catalog’s conveniently enclosed mail order form for us, and then arrange delivery through one of Sears’ local outlet stores?  I was always a little fuzzy on the mechanics of Christmas, and I’m still not exactly sure how the magic worked.  It was like some sort of primitive version of Amazon delivery, back in the day before the high technology of dial-up internet went mainstream.

But honestly, no matter what us kids end up actually getting for a Christmas present, flipping through that Wishbook and dreaming about all the crap we didn’t really need was a gift in itself.  Don’t believe me?  Take a look for yourself:

Now it’s pretty obvious that WishbookWeb was a labor of love for Jason Liebig.  As his unique collection of holiday catalogs began to grow, Jason painstakingly deconstructed each one in order to digitally scan each page by hand.  Started in 2005, he’s since upgraded the website to include holiday catalogs from a number of different companies, going back as far as 1937.  As of this blog post, WishbookWeb has over 20,000 pages of material available for your stroll down memory lane.

But as much as this project might sound unique, Jason Liebeg’s definitely not alone in this niche.  I’ve caught sight of a number of used holidays catalogs for sale on both Ebay and Amazon, and a few intrepid readers have even begun rating and reviewing these catalogs on Goodreads!  So if you’re stuck on what to wish for this holiday season, be sure to stop by WishbookWeb for all the inspiration you need.