Bit of excitement here.
I had been keeping half an eye on proceedings with regard to World Book Night to be held on 5th March 2011, (two days after World Book Day,) when it is planned that a million books will be given away across the UK by an army of 20,000 passionate readers.
If you fancy being one of those givers you can get involved here.
The book give away will comprise of 40,000 copies of 25 selected titles.
Keeping half an eye because there seemed to be a lot of vociferous rumbling around the social media about what a pointless and terrible idea it was and how dreadful this would be for the book trade.
All that seemed to be drowning out any suggestions about how fantastic it might be for the givers and the recipients of the books, to say nothing of the media focus scheduled for that evening... in living memory I don't recall the BBC turning over a night of TV coverage to book-related programming, but that's the plan.
For us readers what's not to love, for the chosen authors what's not to love and for booksellers for all the enthusiasm that could be generated for books and reading.
So what's the excitement here then?
Well I have been asked to be on the World Book Night Editorial Commitee to be chaired by James Naughtie and convening in London very soon to select the 25 titles which are to be announced on December 2nd 2010.
So not only is that a turn up for the books, but I will be turning up for the books and very delighted I am to have been asked.
I'm sure there will be some virtual 'brickbats' flying around from the disgruntled, but equally I hope the occasional virtual 'bouquet' because I have been giving it all a great deal of thought since I was asked and before I agreed.
I can't help it, I'm a book Tigger who would press that book on you in the street if we met, and as you know living in the middle of nowhere...not a street in sight, so I've been doing it in that virtual way here at dovegreyreader for the last four and a half years.
What could be more exciting than to actually place a much-loved and recommended book into someone else's hands and say 'I would really love you to read this...' so I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to be involved with the real thing.


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