Earlier this year, World Book Night launched in the UK with the aim of giving away one million books to light or non readers in a 24 hour period. It was a huge success and many other countries are expected to join in the fun in the coming years, starting with the USA on April 23, 2012.
The list of 30 books that will be offered on World Book Night USA has just been released. If you are a USA resident aged 16 or over and would like to give away books, go to http://www.us.worldbooknight.org and complete the form which asks, simply, which book you want to give away, where, to whom & why?
2012 World Book Night USA Titles (one million copies will be given away in total!)
- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
- Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak)
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (Ballantine)
- Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger (Da Capo)
- Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (Beacon Press)
- Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (Tor)
- Little Bee by Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster)
- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
- Blood Work by Michael Connelly (Grand Central)
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (Riverhead), and the Spanish-language edition (Vintage Espanol)
- Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick)
- Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (Vintage)
- Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (Grove Atlantic)
- A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick (Algonquin)
- Q is for Quarry by Sue Grafton (Berkley)
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead)
- A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (Ballantine)
- The Stand by Stephen King (Anchor)
- The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (Perennial)
- The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (W.W. Norton)
- The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (Mariner)
- The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien (Mariner)
- Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (Perennial)
- My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult (Atria)
- Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (Picador)
- The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (Back Bay)
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (Broadway)
- Just Kids by Patti Smith (Ecco)
- The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Scribner)
- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
For more about the history of World Book Night (which has its genesis in Catalonia, Spain where The Day of the Book has long been celebrated) see our previous posts on the topic.
