A PSA, for book nerds. Paul Constant, at Seattle’s Stranger, says “You Should Sign Up to Give Away Free Books“:
Last April, I took part in World Book Night, a program sponsored by publishers and local booksellers, in which participants each get boxes of 20 books to give away to non-readers. On the advice of Slog readers, I delivered copies of A Prayer for Owen Meany to the VA hospital on Beacon Hill, Books to Prisoners, and Urban Rest Stop.
On April 23rd, people all over the world will give away hundreds of thousands of free books to worthy causes. If you want to take part in World Book Night this year, you can sign up to be a giver right here. The deadline for signups is January 25th. It’s absolutely free to be a giver. I highly recommend it.
World Book Night home page here, and a list of the 30 books chosen for 2013 here. With choices ranging from Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale to James Patterson’s Middle School: the Worst Years of My Life, there’s something on the list to annoy practically anybody who needs vexing…
Elizabelle
Signing up for World Book Night. Could be fun.
ulee
can’t sleep. I guess a pill, though I don’t like them. A clonazepam will turn the trick but I’ll sleep past noon. I wrote on another thread a song I had written, and I wrote it because I felt I was being insulted. Otherwise, I would not have released it. It’s probably all in my mind. But as Emily Dickinson wrote, ” When I state myself, it is not me, but a representation of the verse.”
Linda Featheringill
For weather nerds, a nice discussion of drought in the middle of the US.
dailykos.com/story/2013/01/18/1179915/-The-Strange-Failed-El-Nino-the-Deepening-Drought-Disaster
Is Al Gore still fat?
Debbie(Aussie)
Very interesting. Have sent an email to see if we in Aus might have a go at world book night. Could use a part time job and adore books. You never know :)
mai naem
I’m in Phoenix. Someday earlier this week we had a high of 45. This is a record low high. I’ve lived here a long time and I don’t remember a lower high than around 55. When I got in my car in the AM it took several minutes for the frost to melt on my windshield. And the summers have been crazy. Not so much the actual temperature being a record high, but the total number of consistently higher than normal temp days. We used to have monsoons that would somewhat cool off the end of the summer but the number of days of those have reduced.
Anyhow OT, anybody seen this-
independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-launch-criminal-investigation-into-mps-child-sex-ring-8456434…
Apparently the London police have started an investigation into a child porn/paedophile ring involving conservative party members. Oy vey. I am figuring the Senior Aide they are talking about must be from John Major’s office. I don’t understand this, it seems like every time you turn around there’s another child diddler. WTF? Are there that many pervs in the world?
PeakVT
Talk about hoovering down your food.
@Linda Featheringill: Jeff Masters has a complementary post.
Ecks
We did world book day last year. Gave copies of Jane Austen to people at the local train station. We found that if someone was walking and you tried to accost them to give them a free book they would wave you away without hearing a word, but if they were sitting somewhere waiting they were happy for the interruption. Filed under: “things that should have been obvious but weren’t until you tried them.”
Mnemosyne
Kitten helps sort laundry.
That is all.
parsimon
I’m a little puzzled about why World Book Night has an assigned list of books. As as bookseller myself, well, there are a boatload of books to be given away. I wouldn’t think there’s much value in giving silly, useless books away, but I also don’t see why there’s an assigned reading list.
Huh. I’ll check around with the bookselling community, who probably know (collectively) what the story is.
BarbCat
I love WBN. Did it last year and it’s a lovely concept. I am worried, however, that the homeless on the Venice boardwalk will be burning the copies of Fahrenheit 451 I intend to distribute.