I am once again privileged to be part of the USA's program of World Book Night.
What is WBN?
On April
23, 2013, 25,000 volunteers from Berkeley to Boston and Sitka to Sarasota will
give away half a million free books in more than 6,000 towns and cities across
the country.
World
Book Night U.S. is an ambitious campaign to give thousands of free, specially
printed paperbacks to light or nonreaders across America on one day. Volunteer
book lovers help promote reading by going out into their communities and
sharing free copies of books they love. The mission of World Book Night is to
seek out those without the means or access to printed books.
Some of
the volunteers in your community will be picking up their books at various locations and
sharing them in areas as diverse as VA
hospitals, roller skating rinks, mass transit, nursing homes, schools, food
pantries, and more.
Bestselling authors Ann Patchett and James
Patterson are this year’s honorary chair-people. James Patterson said: “In my
experience, when people like what they are doing, they do more of it. This is
the genius of World Book Night — it gets people reading by connecting them with
amazing, enjoyable books. I’m honored to be a part of it.”
“I’m very proud to be a part of World Book
Night,” Ann Patchett added. “As both a
writer and a bookseller, I’m all in favor of getting books into the hands of
people who might not otherwise have access to them.”
The books were chosen by an independent panel of
booksellers and librarians through several rounds of voting. The printing of
the free books was possible due to generosity of the authors, publishers, and
book manufacturing companies.
The 30 World Book Night U.S. titles
for 2013, alphabetical by author, are:
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret
Atwood (Anchor Books/Random House)
City of Thieves, David
Benioff (Plume/Penguin Group (USA))
Fahrenheit 451, Ray
Bradbury (Simon & Schuster Paperbacks)
My Antonia, Willa
Cather (Dover)
Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy
Chevalier (Plume/Penguin Group (USA))
The House on Mango Street, Sandra
Cisneros (Vintage/Random House)
La casa en Mango Street, Sandra
Cisneros; translated by Elena Poniatowska
(Vintage Español/Random House)
The Alchemist, Paulo
Coelho (HarperOne/HarperCollins)
El Alquimista, Paulo
Coelho (Rayo/HarperCollins)
The Language of Flowers, Vanessa
Diffenbaugh (Ballantine Books/Random House)
The Worst Hard Time, Timothy
Egan (Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Bossypants, Tina
Fey (Reagan Arthur/Back Bay Books)
Good Omens, Neil
Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (William
Morrow Paperbacks/HarperCollins)
Still Alice, Lisa
Genova (Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster)
Looking for Alaska, John
Green (Speak/Penguin Group (USA))
Playing for Pizza, John
Grisham (Bantam/Random House)
Mudbound, Hillary
Jordan (Algonquin Books/Workman Publishing)
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton
Juster; illus. by Jules Feiffer (Yearling/Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young
Readers)
Moneyball, Michael
Lewis (W. W. Norton)
The Tender Bar, J. R.
Moehringer (Hyperion)
Devil in a Blue Dress, Walter
Mosley (Simon & Schuster)
Middle School, The Worst Years of My Life, James Patterson and Chris Tebbetts (Little, Brown Books for
Young Readers)
Population: 485, Michael
Perry (HarperPerennial/HarperCollins)
The Lightning Thief, Rick
Riordan (Disney-Hyperion)
Montana Sky, Nora
Roberts (Berkley/Penguin Group (USA))
Look Again, Lisa
Scottoline (St. Martin’s)
Me Talk Pretty One Day, David
Sedaris (Back Bay Books/Little Brown)
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith (Anchor Books/Random House)
Glaciers, Alexis
M. Smith (Tin House Books)
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Mark Twain (Dover)
Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn
Ward (Bloomsbury)
Favorite American Poems (Large Print edition) various authors (Dover)
World Book Night will take place on
April 23, 2013. World Book Night in the U.S. is a non-profit organization and
has 501(c)3 nonprofit status. World Book Night U.S. is supported by publishers,
Barnes & Noble, the American Booksellers Association, the American Library
Association, Ingram Content Group, FedEx, printers, and paper companies; a full
list of sponsors is at our website.
For more
information about World Book Night, please go to www.WorldBookNight.org
or visit us on Facebook and Twitter.
Links to other countries WBN:
UK & Ireland: http://www.worldbooknight.org/uk-home
Making World Book Night happen takes commitment and passion from across the reading industry as a wide range of partners including authors, publishers, agents, booksellers and libraries who must work together to make WBN a success.
WBN has been in discussion with a variety of potential international partners and hope that as WBN develops it will expand to other countries.
If you are interested in making World Book Night happen in your country please read this initial information document and then contact WBN if you wish to progress further.
Awesome that you are a part of it!
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