I didn’t know what World Book Night was when I moved to the UK two years ago, but I found the idea of it to be terribly exciting. Basically, inspired readers go out into the night and hand out copies of pre-selected books, donated by publishers, to reluctant or non readers. What could be better, right? As for the WORLD part of World Book Night, well it only takes place in the United Kingdom and United States. That’s probably why I didn’t know about it.
While united in the cause of spreading the love of reading, the UK and US have a different selection of books to hand out. On the UK side I am particularly excited by the following books.
- The Humans by Matt Haig
- The Perfect Murder by Peter James
- The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
- The Boy with the Top Knot by Sathnam Sanghera
On the American side of things, I want to give a shout out to my blogging compatriots. Way to go book lovers!
- The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell – Allison at The Book Wheel is handing this one out.
- Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford – Rebecca at Love at First Book loves this book.
- Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs – Handed out by Helen at My Novel Opinion
- Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple – to be given out by Traveling With T, Melissa at Avid Reader’s Musings and Jennifer at The Relentless Reader.
- Wild by Cheryl Strayed – I know Shannon at River City Reading and Leah at Books Speak Volumes are handing this one out.
- Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain – Andi at Estella’s Revenge will be spreading the love with this one.
Good luck to all and if you have a World Book Night story you’d like to share I’d love to hear about it!
52 books or bust 
Thanks for sharing everyone’s books! I plan on squeezing in a wrap up post (hopefully tomorrow) about the experience.
I can’t wait to hear about it.
I’m so excited to participate in WBN for the first time! Thanks for linking to my blog 🙂
No problem. Can’t wait to hear all about it!
Thanks for linking to my blog Tanya! I’m planning on a post sometime next week (maybe even tomorrow) about my experiences.
Woohoo for World Book Night! I’ll be handing out copies of Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain!
I’m handing out copies of Where’d You Go Bernadette. It’s my first year as a giver and I’m so excited!
I’m actually super excited to hear people’s wrap up stories of their experiences!!!
Thanks for sharing my #wbn2014 book selection! You = seriously covered in awesome!
World Book Night would be awesome, but Australia doesn’t have one. Sometimes I wish I lived in UK or somewhere more bookish. Pipe dreams
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I would’ve given out The Weird Sisters. Loved that book!
I’m glad to hear that you liked it. I’ve heard mixed reviews and it’s on my TBR Challenge. Gotta get to it soon.
Checking out the website for the first time… I’m so curious about the application… like how do you prove that you’ll reach non-readers? Are you supposed to ask people whether they usually read or not?
I also had no idea this was a publisher-lead project. I thought it was kind of grassroots. It’s basically a marketing thing (not that that is good or bad… but it is marketing/PR)
Yeah, publisher lead, but still a good thing. I don’t know how you prove that you’ll get to non-readers. I was turned down the first time I applied. And quite frankly, i think when you are standing at a busy intersection and handing out books, the readers are naturally attracted. I mean, wouldn’t you be? The other problem is that it seems that it is all of us dedicated readers who are talking about it. No need to preach to the choir!
Thanks so much for the shout-out! WBN was a great success for this giver. I had a ball, talked to some great people too
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