Fancy getting 48 free copies of a book you love, to distribute to people who want them?
World Book Night (two days after World Book Day) are giving away a million books (multiple copies of 25 selected titles), and yes, 48 of them could be through you. 20,000 volunteer book-givers – passionate readers who want to recommend a particular title – will receive 48 copies of one book from the WBN list, and will pass them on individually to people they think will enjoy them.
The rest of the books will be distributed by World Book Night staff, to hospitals, prisons and other institutions.
The 25 titles, chosen by a committee chaired by James Naughtie, are:
Kate Atkinson – Case Histories
Margaret Atwood – The Blind Assassin
Alan Bennett – A Life Like Other People’s
John le Carré – The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
Lee Child – Killing Floor
Carol Ann Duffy – The World’s Wife
Mark Haddon – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Seamus Heaney – Selected Poems
Marian Keyes – Rachel’s Holiday
Mohsin Hamid – The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Ben Macintyre – Agent Zigzag
Gabriel García Márquez – Love in the Time of Cholera
Yann Martel – Life of Pi
Alexander Masters – Stuart: A Life Backwards
Rohinton Mistry – A Fine Balance
David Mitchell – Cloud Atlas
Toni Morrison – Beloved
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Half of a Yellow Sun
David Nicholls – One Day
Philip Pullman – Northern Lights
Erich Maria Remarque – All Quiet on the Western Front
CJ Sansom – Dissolution
Nigel Slater – Toast
Muriel Spark – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Sarah Waters – Fingersmith
You won’t be able to wrap them in brown paper and string and leave them under the Christmas tree, because giver selection is not till January. World Book Night is on Saturday 5th March 2011, and the t’s and c’s state that givers will be throughout the UK and Ireland, so if I can bypass the mandatory postcode entry I’ll be making an application. Harder than you might think, though, to come up with 48 people you know who’d all love, say, the Heaney poems, or would take the necessary leaps of faith to make it through the early parts of Cloud Atlas. I’ve certainly recommended books to 48 people, but I don’t know if I’ve ever recommended the same book to 48 people before (except maybe the wonderfully funny Cold Comfort Farm, which most people handed back in confusion), and I’m not sure how genuine my “personal recommendation” will be, when the reason I’m giving the book away is because I have 48 copies of it and I’ve promised to.
I suppose when it comes down to it World Book Night is not so much a celebration of reading and the joy of sharing your personal favourites with your 48 most intimate friends, but a clever word-of-mouth marketing scheme by publishers. But hey, more power to their elbow. Not everything that makes money for someone else is wrong, and a million free copies of those 25 books floating about in the world aren’t going to make it a worse place for my children to grow up in.
Thinking of applying? What book would you choose? I can’t decide.
Update, 5th February: I’ve just heard that I was successful in my application for the Selected Poems of Seamus Heaney. Very happy to give copies away in response to begging emails.
Anthea McTeirnan
Croí na Duibhlinn
Aoife Barry
Aoife McLysaght
Arlene Hunt
Attracta McCarthy-McKenna
clairehennessy
Ann Cronin
Amanda Brown
Eleanor Fitzsimons
Edel Coffey
Anna Carey
Lauren Murphy
Jennie Ridyard
Jude Leavy
Hazel Katherine Larkin
Léan Ní Chuilleanáin
Leigh
Lisa McInerney
Laura Slattery
Maman Poulet
Megan McGurk
Clare Kleinedler
Molly
Rosita Boland
Catherine Crichton
Sinéad Gleeson
sarahefranklin
siobhandowling
Susan Daly
theantiroom
Nuala Ní Chonchúir
What a great idea. Could i book in to the Alan Bennett
What would I do?
How I love Alan Bennett.
Apply online at
http://www.worldbooknight.org/become-a-giver/apply-to-be-a-book-giver/
If you look at the “next steps” link you’ll be able to find a bookshop local to you. If your application is successful, the books will be delivered to the shop you choose. Off you pop to collect them, and take it from there.
Beloved by Toni Morrison-great book, one you don’t forget
That’s a wonderful book.
It would have to be Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘The World’s Wife’ for me… She has an ability to describe the emotions, in particular, love and longing, in the most beautiful way.
I’m sorry to say I haven’t read it, I only have her Selected Poems. Which, of course, makes me an excellent candidate to go on your list of 48…
So many great books on that list. Tempted to go for Muriel Spark or David Mitchell, but could I find 48 people that would like either? Hmm. Tough one.
Beloved is a masterpiece too…
Will bear that in mind !
I think I have recommended A Fine Balance to at least 48 people in the last 4 years!
I’d prolifically recommend Cold Comfort Farm as well – the blight of so many ‘amusing’ books is self-consciousness, and this one is seamlessly devoid of a winning authorial presence. And of the list I’d join Alice in going for Carol Ann Duffy, who is the perfect centre along a line between John Betjeman and Jeanette Winterson and therefore all things to my 48 readers.
I’m delighted to see another CCF fan! It’s fresh every time. Flora is a fantastic heroine, so cool and resourceful and stern, and the Starkadders are genius.
Yes, I thought it was a good list too. At the moment I am thinking of the Heaney – better get my application in today or the idea will get lost in the approaching fog of Christmas pudding brandy.
No contest – I applied for Cloud Atlas. actually rereading
the list, a lot of contest but still David Mitchell does it for
me.
Hope you get it. I’ve applied for the Heaney poems, fingers crossed now.
I’ve been told I’m getting the Heaney book – so I’d be delighted to give a copy to anyone hungry for a bit of poetry.
Antonia, would love a copy of Heaney poems, if it’s going…
Always hungry for poetry…
Alice, do you want to contact me about the book? antoniahart (all one word) at eircom dot net. I have one kept aside for you.