In UK alone, 20,000 regular and passionate readers will gift 24 copies of their favourite books to encourage others to read more. World Book Night also gave away 620,000 more books to people in the hardest to reach areas, ie, prisons, care homes, hospitals and sheltered housing.
So How Does It Work?
25 books titles are chosen and printed with the special 'World Book Night' edition. Givers apply for a particular book (you get a first, second and third choice), which they then must commit to gift to non-readers to share their love of reading.
The Givers then collect their books from local bookshops and libraries
Why Should I?
- Over half of adults of working age have literacy skills below what is expected at GCSE level and 16% are below the level of an 11 year old.
- 4 Million children in the UK do not own a single book.
- Women with low literacy skills are five times more likely than an average reader to suffer with depression.
- A third of people in UK have not bought a book in the past 12 months and 34% never even read.
Research into libraries' use of reading for pleasure with adults with literacy needs establish that simple interventions such as World Book Night can make a real difference in people's motivation to learn as well as gain more confidence and skills.
Why Today?
April 23 is a big day in the book calendar!
It is both the birth and death day of William Shakespeare as well as the death of Cervantes, a great Spanish novelist. It is in their honour that UNESCO appointed it the international day of the book
Which Books!?
The books chosen for this year are:
- Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
- Iain M Banks - The Player of Games
- Mark Billingham- Sleepyhead
- Bill Bryson - Notes From A Small Island
- Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist
- Martina Cole- The Take
- Bernard Cornwell - Harlequin
- Roald Dahl - Someone Like You
- Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities
- Emma Donoghue - Room
- Daphne Du Maurier - Rebecca
- Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of The Day
- Stephen King - Misery
- Sophie Kinsella - The Secret Dreamworld Of A Shopaholic
- Andrea Levy - Small Island
- John Ajvide Lindqvist - Let The Right One In
- Cormac McCarthy - The Road
- Audrey Niffeneger - The Time Travellers Wife
- Maggie O'Farrel - The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
- David Peace - The Damned Utd
- Terry Pratchet & Neil Gaiman - Good Omens
- Meg Rosoff - How I Live Now
- Joe Simpson - Touching The Void
- Dodie Smith - I Capture The Castle
- Markus Zusak - The Book Theif
*WBN 2011 preview video
You can Login or Register at the World Book Night Website from 7.15pm tonight to hear more from authors and celebrities.
No comments:
Post a Comment