20,000 volunteers will hand out a record-breaking half a million books tonight as part of World Book Night 2013. The event, now in its third year, aims to promote a love of literacy and share the joy of books with non-readers.
Hundreds of literary events will be held across Britain at libraries, village halls, pubs and local book clubs. The volunteers will each give out twenty copies of their favourite book to people in their community who don’t read regularly. An independent editorial committee of librarians, booksellers, writers and broadcasters has drawn up a list of twenty titles, from which the volunteers have chosen their book to give away.
This year’s list of books includes The Island by Victoria Hislop, The Reader by Bernhard Schlink and The White Queen by Philippa Gregory. There is also a graphic novel, Judge Dredd: The Dark Judges, by John Wagner.
The author Tracy Chevalier, whose novel The Girl With A Pearl Earring, is also on the list, has signed up to be a volunteer. She has chosen to hand out 20 copies of The Road Home by Rose Tremain, who writes about an Eastern European immigrant who moves to London in search of work in the restaurant trade.