On April 23, 25,000 volunteers will give away half a million books in over 6,000 communities across the US, including here in Connecticut.
Yes, World Book Night, celebrated each year on Shakespeare's birthday, is almost upon us.
Byrd's Books in Bethel and Barnes & Noble in Westport are among the 2,300 US bookstores and libraries supporting World Book Night. Byrd's Books will host two receptions for local givers, who can choose to attend either Wednesday, April 16 or Tuesday, April 22. Both gatherings begin at 6:30 p.m.
For those not in-the-know, World Book Night is a national campaign to promote reading by distributing free books to non- and light readers, especially those without means or access to books. It launched in the UK in 2011 and is now in its third year in the US.
Here's how it works: Librarians, booksellers, and last year's givers select a range of award-winning and bestselling adult and YA books, including classics, books in Spanish, and large print books. Meanwhile, volunteers apply to become "givers" of the books. With the organizational support of local libraries and bookstores, each volunteer gets a box of specially-printed paperbacks, all of a single title (they can request which one they want to give out). On April 23, these volunteer givers station themselves at hospitals, mass transit, nursing homes, food pantries, underfunded schools, and more, handing out one book at a time.
This year on April 22, World Book Night is also making a short, free, and original e-book available to everyone on its website. It's a collection of ten short essays by booksellers, librarians, and authors who have been givers.
This year's World Book Night US titles, in alphabetical order by author:
- "The Zookeeper's Wife," Diane Ackerman (W.W. Norton)
- "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl," Jesse Andrews (Amulet)
- "Zora and Me," Victoria Bond and T.S. Simon (Candlewick)
- "Kitchen Confidential," Anthony Bourdain (Ecco)
- "The Weird Sisters," Eleanor Brown (Berkley)
- "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," Stephen Chbosky (Simon & Schuster)
- "After the Funeral," Agatha Christie (William Morrow Paperbacks)
- "The Ruins of Gorlan: Ranger's Apprentice Book 1," John Flanagan (Puffin Books)
- "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet," Jamie Ford (Ballantine Books)
- "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" - in Large Print (Thorndike/Gale; Cengage Learning) The Lighthouse Road, Peter Geye (Unbridled Books)
- "The Tipping Point," Malcolm Gladwell (Back Bay Books)
- "Wait Till Next Year," Doris Kearns Goodwin (Simon & Schuster)
- "Catch-22," Joseph Heller (Simon & Schuster)
- "The Dog Stars," Peter Heller (Vintage)
- "Hoot," Carl Hiaasen (Knopf)
- "Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon," Garrison Keillor (Penguin Books)
- "Same Difference," Derek Kirk Kim (First Second Books)
- "Enchanted," Alethea Kontis (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
- "Miss Darcy Falls in Love," Sharon Lathan (Sourcebooks)
- "Bobcat and Other Stories," Rebecca Lee (Algonquin Books)
- "Young Men and Fire," Norman Maclean (University of Chicago Press)
- "Waiting to Exhale," Terry McMillan (New American Library)
- "Tales of the City," Armistead Maupin (HarperPerennial)
- "Sunrise Over Fallujah," Walter Dean Myers (Scholastic)
- "Twelve Years a Slave," Solomon Northup (Dover)
- "Bridge to Terabithia," Katherine Paterson (HarperTrophy)
- "The Botany of Desire," Michael Pollan (Random House)
- "The Raven's Warrior," Vincent Pratchett (YMAA Books)
- "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children," Ransom Riggs (Quirk Books)
- "When I Was Puerto Rican," Esmeralda Santiago (Da Capo)
- "Cuando era puertorriqueña," Esmeralda Santiago (Vintage Español)
- "Where'd You Go Bernadette," Maria Semple (Back Bay Books)
- "Where'd You Go Bernadette"- in Large Print (Thorndike/Gale; Cengage Learning)
- "Wild," Cheryl Strayed (Vintage)
- "Presumed Innocent," Scott Turow (Grand Central Publishing)
- "Code Name Verity," Elizabeth Wein (Disney Hyperion)