World Book Night

Happy World Book Night to all our Readers!

As a charity with a mission to bring about a Reading Revolution, The Reader Organisation is proud to be a World Book Night Institutional Giver, one of the organisations and volunteers giving away half a million books tonight, spreading the love of reading around the UK.

World Book Night is about giving books to those who do not normally read, or have limited access to books. But it is also about people, communities and connections, reaching out to others and touching lives through the sharing of stories. We do this every single day in our Get Into Reading groups, connecting people with great literature and each other and improving wellbeing and personal confidence through the shared reading experience. As a result, we will be distributing our 100 books amongst our Get Into Reading group members in prisons and criminal justice settings across the country. The members will be able to keep their books, but they will also share the experience of reading them together.

One of our Project Workers, Steffi Camm, will be hosting a special World Book Night event with her Get Into Reading group members:

I am going to a 16 bed Approved Premises (a kind of hostel) in Merseyside for men who have been in prison, many of whom have been diagnosed with Personality Disorder. I normally run a group there every Friday morning, ‘Book at Breakfast’, where we all have a bacon butty before the group starts, myself included!

To celebrate World Book Night I will be running a Shared Reading Group after sitting down for dinner with the residents. We will be reading from ‘Red Dust Road’  by Jackie Kay. I am going to give personalised copies of the books to the group members as a gift. I also plan to take in some of Jackie Kay’s poetry for us to read. If they like the book we might continue on with it. If they don’t fancy that, they will still have the book to take away.

It will be an evening of fun, food and lots of reading!

If you're a World Book Night giver, why not let us know here on the blog, on Twitter, or on Facebook? We'd love to share your giving experience.

The Reader Organisation will also be at the flagship World Book Night event in Liverpool's St George's Hall tonight, where a host of world famous authors, including TRO patrons Frank Cottrell Boyce and Jeanette Winterson, along with Jackie Kay herself and some special friends, come together to celebrate the third World Book Night and kick off Liverpool's brand new literary festival, In Other Words, launched to celebrate the re-opening of Liverpool Central Library.

We'll be there all night in the literary marketplace, so why not join us for an evening of readings, discussions and debate celebrating our shared passion for reading. There are still a few tickets left for some of the author events (visit the In Other Words website for more details) but it is free to  drop in to the marketplace from 5-9pm for a cup of tea and some literary chat. Our stall will have lots of information about our work across Liverpool and beyond, along with all the details of our very own In Other Words upcoming events - keep an eye on the blog over the next few days to find out more.

Whatever you're doing to celebrate World Book Night, we wish you a reading-filled evening, and if you are in Liverpool then do pop along tonight - we'd love to see you!