Monday 6 May 2013

World Book Night - What I got Up To!

23rd April was World Book Night!! I’m afraid it’s taken me a little while longer than I had hoped to write my day, but as often happens, life gets in the way of fictional fun!

The box of books for me to giveaway
 So I volunteered to be a Book Giver this year and was so happy to be accepted. I decided I was going to give my 20 books away at work. I’m very lucky that a lot of my friends are also big readers and I have frequent book-y conversations with them all the time! However, very few of my friends and colleagues at work are big readers. It’s well known that most of my reading is done on the train on the way to and from the office but my colleagues either drive, listen to music or peruse the Metro rather than opening a book. So I thought it would be nice to hand out the books to people who don’t read as much as me!

The book I choose I was The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde – a book I first read at university over ten years and adored. It’s set in an alternative 1985 where Dodo’s are house-pets and the Crimean War never ended. The heroine is Thursday Next, a literary detective who investigates crimes against books. It has mystery, action, hilarious jokes, satire, fantasy, romance and just surreally inventive ideas – in other words, something for everyone.

Special Edition of The Eyre Affair!
As well as the book, I also brought in some homemade rocky road bites (melted chocolate, cornflakes and marshmallows), cookies, party rings and some freshly made popcorn – the best way into my colleagues affections has always been through their stomachs! At eleven am I pulled everyone together told them what I was doing. I handed out all the books and unveiled the treats. Everyone was pretty amazed and surprised to be getting a book, but also happy and touched. Quite a few said they really should read more and were inspired to start reading that day on the train home. A couple others said they were going to take it on holiday with them later in May as a holiday read. What was nice is that we have quite a few non-British nationals in the office and the handful of French and Norwegian were keen to read a book in English!

Overall, it was a nice event and celebration in what is normally a pretty dull office life and I hope I inspired a few of them to try reading even slightly more. I am definitely keen to take part again next year! J

3 comments:

  1. I wish World Book Night had a bigger Canadian presence. But so far it seems like for all it's called "World" Book Night, it really seems to only be centres in the US and UK. It really is a shame, because I'd love to participate.

    Glad you had fun with it, though!

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  2. What a great way to do it! I also loved this book and it's a great one to give away!! Glad you had fun!

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  3. Cool :D I wish we had something like that here

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