World Book Night - Our Givers Story

Millions of books were given out last night by thousands of volunteer givers in the UK, Ireland, US and Germany in aid of World Book Night.

It was our first time of being a volunteer giver this year and we we're really excited.  Our book was The Take by Martina Cole.

So first we had to collect our box of 24 books from our local Library, then inside each book we attached the World Book Night bookplate stating who the books had been given out by and each book had its own unique number so it could be traced through Bookcrossing in the future to see where its many destinations have been .

Then came decision time, where should we give out our books??  The whole point of World Book Night is to encourage reading and to give to people who do not necessarily read a great deal.  After much thought we came up with three different places.

The first was the Butterwick Hospice based locally in Stockton, Cleveland, here we gave half of our books.  They provide an extremely valuable free service in our community, providing help to people living with a life limiting illness, relieving symptoms, enriching patient’s lives and supporting them and their loved ones.  They also offer popular drop in sessions and one day each week the Day Care area is dedicated to bereavement care. Butterwick's skilled staff and volunteer councellors are on hand to advise, guide and support those who have lost loved ones.

The World Book Night books will go to the in-patients and be available for their relatives to read while they are there and to even taken home and return when they have finished Martina's story.  The Butterwick Hospice is close to my heart and I couldn't think of a more worthy place to donate our books to.

Our second choice was Ashbourne Lodge nursing home close to where we live in Billingham, Cleveland.  Offering care for the elderly, and a range of specialist services for people with mental health requirements and those who are physically less able. With around 40-50 residents we felt this would be a great place to donate our books.

Our third choice was Ashwood Lodge nursing home, again close to where we live in Billingham, Cleveland.  A privately owned 27 bedded care home registered to provide care to older people for personal care and people with dementia.

The satisfying feeling of giving was immense and knowing that the elderly and ill will benefit in some small way made it even more special.  We deal with books everyday, buying, reviewing, selling and it makes a lovely change to have been part of this amazing night.

Stephen Fry joins World Book Night Givers

Writer among 20,000 volunteers handing out a million free copies 

Fear not, if approached by a fervent-eyed reader brandishing a bundle of books in your general direction. It's World Book Night, and 1 million books are set to be given away in the UK by 20,000 book lovers to mark the occasion on Monday 23 April.

Volunteers range from Stephen Fry, who will be handing out Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities on the set of an adaptation of an Ian Rankin novel in Edinburgh, to Alexander McCall Smith, giving away Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day to his local community, and culture secretary Ed Vaizey, who plumped for David Peace's novel about Brian Clough, The Damned Utd. Forty thousand copies of the 25 books chosen for the occasion will be given away around the UK in an attempt to inspire a love of books in reluctant readers.

As well as the book giveaways, hundreds of readings and author events are taking place around the country in libraries, theatres, bookshops and arts centres, with participants including the authors Marina Lewycka, Patrick Gale and Maggie O'Farrell. The day – which also marks Shakespeare's birthday and Unesco International Day of the Book – will culminate with a major event at the Southbank Centre in London, where authors including Iain Banks, Andrea Levy, David Nicholls and Mark Haddon will read from their work, with a live stream appearance from Neil Gaiman in America and a video message from Margaret Atwood.

Gaiman's novel Good Omens, written jointly with Terry Pratchett, is one of the titles being distributed freely and the author said via email that he was "delighted" to have been chosen for the giveaway. "I was more thrilled than you would believe to have had four and a half books make it into the lead on the World Book Night voting site last year, and was delighted that the half a book was picked (because readers get to meet me and Terry Pratchett for the price of one. Well, not-the-price of anything. Oh, you know what I mean)," he wrote. "Thrilled because it means that people who like books are going to proselytise; pleased because the greatest book-recommending engine ever created, Word Of Mouth, is going to be deployed. Thrilled because people will read my words who might never have encountered them otherwise. Possibly they might make people laugh. Or think. Or just enjoy the story."

Atwood agreed. "Books without readers are like musical scores without players. And unless people are introduced to the joys of reading, reading books will disappear. World Book Night allows passionate readers to share the books they adore. And it's a gift … gifts make powerful statements," she said.

Although there was some controversy last year around World Book Night, with some bookshops questioning the wisdom of flooding the market with free books, Gaiman said that "anything that gets people reading, anything that gets people back into the habit of reading, anything that reminds people how much pleasure they can take in a book is a good thing".

"I don't see this as millions of lost sales for bookshops; I see it as, potentially and with luck, hundreds of thousands more customers for bookshops," he said. Atwood added that last year's event "increased the sum total of books read and also books sold – at least for those bookstores that participated".

This year – the UK's second World Book Night – events will also be running in Germany, the US and Ireland, with 2.5m books to be distributed for free in total. "We always hoped that World Book Night would become a global initiative that truly lived up to its name," said founder Jamie Byng, who is giving copies of The Damned Utd to inmates at HMP Wormwood Scrubs in London. "The number of givers signed up and the sheer volume of books being given away across the Germany, the USA, the UK and Ireland is truly astounding and the prospect of so many great books being read and shared all over the world on 23 April is very exciting."

Alison Flood

guardian.co.uk, 

Where did we decide to give out our share of World Book Night Books - check back tomorrow!!

Where would you distribute yours??

Check for your local events here

  

World Book Night is nearly here !!

We're so excited to have been selected this year to be a World Book Night Giver!!!

We've been given Martina Cole's The Take to hand out to twenty five lucky readers .

How and Where we're still planning !!

Why April 23rd?

April 23 is a symbolic date for world literature.
It is both the birth and death day of Shakespeare, as well as the death day of Cervantes, the great Spanish novelist.
It is in their honour that UNESCO appointed it the international day of the book and that we choose it to celebrate World Book Night.
April 23rd also marks the city of Barcelona's celebration of St George's Day. St George is the patron saint of Castille as well as England and traditionally, to celebrate this day, Spanish gentlemen gave their ladies roses and the ladies returned the favour with a book.
Considering the rich literary history of this day, it seemed more than fitting that April 23rd should be chosen as the day of celebrating reading and the giving of books

Have you checked where your local event will be? Check out the Events Page.

World Book Night - We've Been Selected plus Authors Choose Extracts to be given away with their work

We are soooo excited to have been picked to be a World Book Night Giver in April!!!!!!
We were given our third choice of The Take by Martina Cole - We have to hand out copies of the book to encourage reading.  I wonder who the lucky ones will be when we hand them out :-)

Stephen King picks Hesh Kestin and Terry Pratchett adds GK Chesterton to accompany their novels in million-book giveaway

Terry Pratchett (left) would like to introduce GK Chesterton (right). Photograph: David Levene/Getty

Terry Pratchett would like us to sample GK Chesterton, Iain Banks is pushing Alan Moore and Roald Dahl's estate is keen on Sarah Waters. The authors chosen to be part of World Book Night on 23 April, when 1m books will be given away for free, have picked the books they themselves would recommend to readers – with Stephen King's ringing endorsement of obscure American crime novel The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats as "the best book you never read" leading a British publisher to pounce on it.

From King's Misery to Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, Pride and Prejudice to The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella, each of the 25 titles to be distributed in April by 20,000 volunteers is now also set to include a sample extract from another title selected by its author. King's pick of Hesh Kestin's The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats – he calls it "The Godfather on laughing gas, or Catch-22 with guns … witty, sexy, thrilling, and all story" – will see two chapters of the book included in the back of the 40,000 copies of Misery distributed in April. Publisher Hodder & Stoughton couldn't miss out on the chance and has just acquired Kestin's 1960s New York tale about a college student who meets a notorious Jewish gangster, published in America in 2009 but previously ignored in the UK, for release on 12 April.

King might have plumped for a recent novel to promote to readers, but other World Book Night authors are hoping to push older titles. Martina Cole has chosen an extract from Graham Greene's Brighton Rock, Kinsella is pushing EM Delafield's The Diary of a Provincial Lady and Ishiguro is hoping readers will be intrigued by Stefan Zweig's 1938 novel Beware of Pity. Further picks mean Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit will be sampled in Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle, Jorge Luis Borges's The Aleph in Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist and Ann Patchett's State of Wonder in Emma Donoghue's Room.

"The idea is really very simple," said World Book Night chief executive Julia Kingsford. "World Book Night is all about encouraging people to embark on a reading journey and we believe that you're never more vulnerable to your next read as you are when you've just finished a book. We are really excited at the prospect of being able to put another great book into the hands, hearts and minds of new readers the minute they've finished their WBN book. Asking our World Book Night authors to recommend something seems like the perfect way to introduce new books and writers to readers and encourage people to keep on reading."

The award-winning poet Don Paterson has also chosen a Shakespeare sonnet for each book – themed "as much as possible" around each individual title – which will be printed in the books to mark Shakespeare's birthday, which coincides with World Book Night. Pride and Prejudice will feature Sonnet 116, "Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments"; Donoghue's story of imprisonment is matched with Sonnet 133, "Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken"; and The Remains of the Day with Sonnet 73, "In me thou see'st the twilight of such day / As after sunset fadeth in the west".

Alison Flood

guardian.co.uk

The World Book Night 2012 Top 100 .

The WBN 2012 Top 100

Is your favourite book on the World Book Nights Top 100 List, if not its not too late to add it click here

From 25 June – 31 August 2011 we asked readers to nominate the 10 books they most love to read, give and share. Over 6,000 people nominated more than 8,000 titles and the top 100 displayed below will be used to inform the choice of the editorial selection committee who will be selecting the WBN 2012 titles

But we still want readers to tell us their favourite books and a constantly evolving top 100 can be seen here.

The 2012 Long List - ordered by number of votes:

1 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
2 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
3 The Book Thief Markus Zusak
4 Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
5 The Time Traveler's Wife Audrey Niffenegger
6 The Lord of the Rings J. R. R. Tolkien
7 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams
8 Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
9 Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier
10 The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini
11 American Gods Neil Gaiman
12 A Thousand Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseini
13 Harry Potter Adult Hardback Boxed Set J. K. Rowling
14 The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafon
15 The Hobbit J. R. R. Tolkien
16 One Day David Nicholls
17 Birdsong Sebastian Faulks
18 The Help Kathryn Stockett
19 Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
20 Good Omens Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
21 The Notebook Nicholas Sparks
22 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson
23 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood
24 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
25 Little Women Louisa M. Alcott
26 Memoirs of a Geisha Arthur Golden
27 The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold
28 Atonement Ian McEwan
29 Room Emma Donoghue
30 Catch-22 Joseph Heller
31 We Need to Talk About Kevin Lionel Shriver
32 His Dark Materials Philip Pullman
33 Captain Corelli's Mandolin Louis De Bernieres
34 The Island Victoria Hislop
35 Neverwhere Neil Gaiman
36 The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver
37 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger
38 Chocolat Joanne Harris
39 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro
40 The Five People You Meet in Heaven Mitch Albom
41 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
42 Animal Farm George Orwell
43 The Pillars of the Earth Ken Follett
44 The Eyre Affair Jasper Fforde
45 Tess of the D'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy
46 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl
47 I Capture the Castle Dodie Smith
48 The Wasp Factory Iain Banks
49 Life of Pi Yann Martel
50 The Road Cormac McCarthy
51 Great Expectations Charles Dickens
52 Dracula Bram Stoker
53 The Secret History Donna Tartt
54 Small Island Andrea Levy
55 The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett
56 Lord of the Flies William Golding
57 Persuasion Jane Austen
58 A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving
59 Notes from a Small Island Bill Bryson
60 Watership Down Richard Adams
61 Night Watch Terry Pratchett
62 Brave New World Aldous Huxley
63 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Mark Haddon
64 Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell Susanna Clarke
65 The Color Purple Alice Walker
66 My Sister's Keeper Jodi Picoult
67 The Stand Stephen King
68 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell
69 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov
70 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
71 Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons
72 Frankenstein Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
73 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Mary Ann Shaffer
74 The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde
75 Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell
76 The Graveyard Book Neil Gaiman
77 The Woman in White Wilkie Collins
78 The Princess Bride William Goldman
79 A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth
80 Perfume Patrick Suskind
81 The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas
82 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy
83 Middlemarch George Eliot
84 Dune Frank Herbert
85 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel
86 Stardust Neil Gaiman
87 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
88 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie
89 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone J. K. Rowling
90 Shantaram Gregory David Roberts
91 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro
92 Possession: A Romance A. S. Byatt
93 Tales of the City Armistead Maupin
94 Kafka on the Shore Haruki Murakami
95 The Magus John Fowles
96 The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas John Boyne
97 A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry
98 Alias Grace Margaret Atwood
99 Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami
100 The Wind-up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami