Tuesday 1 March 2011

A COUNT DOWN TO WORLD BOOK NIGHT


 World Book Night is getting closer.
Chairman of the event, Jamie Byng, chief of publisher Canongate hopes the event will have "an enormously positive impact on books and reading."
 "Having a million books given to one million different people on one night in this way is both unprecedented and hugely exciting," he said. 
He is right!
The event starts in Trafalgar Square, this Friday night. Margaret Atwood, John le Carré and other major writers will be reading from their books to mark the official start to this amazing concept.
Comprehensive lists of books were forwarded to a panel. The merits of many well-known and well-loved books were debated. The titles they selected will be handed out for free. This is the list they chose:  
  • Kate Atkinson - Case Histories 
  • Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin 
  • Alan Bennett - A Life Like Other People's 
  • John le Carré - The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
  • Lee Child - Killing Floor 
  • Carol Ann Duffy - The World's Wife 
  • Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time 
  • Seamus Heaney - Selected Poems 
  • Marian Keyes - Rachel's Holiday 
  • Mohsin Hamid - The Reluctant Fundamentalist 
  • Ben Macintyre - Agent Zigzag 
  • Gabriel García Márquez - Love in the Time of Cholera 
  • Yann Martel - Life of Pi 
  • Alexander Masters - Stuart: A Life Backwards 
  • Rohinton Mistry - A Fine Balance 
  • David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas 
  • Toni Morrison - Beloved 
  • Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Half of a Yellow Sun 
  • David Nicholls - One Day 
  • Philip Pullman - Northern Lights
  • Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front
  • CJ Sansom - Dissolution 
  • Nigel Slater - Toast 
  • Muriel Spark - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 
  • Sarah Waters - Fingersmith
Twenty-five books.

I watched the televised parts of the debate that lead to the selections - every one of them had to be remarkable to get through to the final twenty-five.

Currently, I have read three :(  I intend to read them all, starting with One Day by David Nicholls ( Has anyone got a copy I can have? ;))

WHICH BOOK WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE GIVEN ON WORLD BOOK NIGHT?

2 comments:

  1. Wow- this sounds really neat! I think I might want to read the worlds wife.

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  2. Hi Summer
    The World's Wife is near the top of my gotta-read list too :D

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