World Book Night: 5th March 2011

The Largest Book Give-Away Ever Attempted!

The inaugural World Book Night will take place on Saturday, 5 March 2011, two days after World Book Day! It is intended to celebrate books and encourage reading. A growing list of high-profile figures from publishing, media and the arts are lending their support to this ambitious initiative by becoming Patrons of World Book Night including Damon Albarn, Dave Eggers, Colin Firth, David Gilmour, Antony Gormley, Seamus Heaney, Damien Hirst, Nigella Lawson, Mary Portas, J.K. Rowling and Tilda Swinton.



Jamie Byng, Chairman, World Book Night says: “World Book Night is a unique collaboration between publishers, booksellers, libraries, writers and individual members of the public and one that I think is going to have an enormously positive impact on books and reading. There are few things more meaningful than the personal recommendation and having one million books given to one million different people on one night in this way is both unprecedented and hugely exciting.”



With the full support of the Publishers Association, the Booksellers Association, the Independent Publishers Guild, the Reading Agency with libraries, World Book Day and the BBC, one million books will be given away by an army of 20,000 passionate readers to members of the public across the UK and Ireland! And I am one of the lucky givers, the book I will be distributing is Case Histories by Kate Atkinson. I have decided to offer the first five to my blog readers so if you want a free book, send me your details by e-mail and I will post out the book to the lucky few. The rest will be distributed locally or I will be broke!



To get involved, you can check out their Facebook page.



World Book Night will take place on Saturday 5 March 2011 and will be broadcast in partnership with BBC Two.

A Million Books for Free: A Culture Show Special, BBC2 Saturday @ 7.30pm

Presented by Andrew Graham-Dixon, this half-hour film tells the story of World Book Night. The film follows the preparations for the night, as a million books are printed and distributed to 20,000 givers, who have volunteered to hand out 48 copies of their favourite book, which features on World Book Night's list of selected titles. With 25 different books on the special list, there is something for everyone to enjoy, from Nigel Slater's Toast and Seamus Heaney's New Selected Poems to The Spy Who Came In From the Cold by John le Carre. World Book Night is about sharing, through word of mouth, the pleasure of reading. In the film, famous and non-famous readers talk about the books they really love.



And for those lucky enough to live in London - there is a ticketed event in Trafalgar Square the night before hosted by Graham Norton. This event will be covered on BBC2, at which appearing on the night will be a great line up of well-known authors, actors and musicians who will be reading from books they love. Organisers said they expected an audience of around 10,000 people at what they described as "a glittering celebration of the written word".