Million Book Give-Away for World Book Night - Exclusive from Margaret Atwood

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Books Rule! You read it here first!

They’re giving away a million of them. That’s 1,000,000. On a single, fabulous night. March 5, 2011, called World Book Night.

Can you imagine? Who would do such a madly, hugely unbelievable thing?

The madly, hugely unbelievable British, of course. A whole lot of their writers, publishers, libraries, and lowly booksellers are getting together and, yes, giving away 1,000,000 books to complete strangers all over the UK and Ireland.

Actually, the way it works is that 20,000 “givers” will be chosen, and each one will give away 48 copies of a book, so the people receiving the books won’t technically be “complete strangers” to the givers, in that sense. 

By giving away, we mean “giving.” Donating. Printing at cost. Foregoing royalties. Not making any money from the thing.

Margaret Atwood told us exclusively at MY idolVine, “The Twitterverse is already saying that World Book Night is a brilliant idea, and many from countries other than the UK and Ireland are hoping it can be available to them also. I know there are plans afoot to bring it to North America in 2012, and with luck it can spread to other countries as well.” 

Colin Firth, the actor, is a supporter. Seamus Heaney, too (Nobel Prize for Literature, 1995). Nigella Lawson, the bombshell English foodie, also J K Rowling, who needs no introduction (but she wrote the Harry Potter books) and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd are some of the other stellar types who are taking part.

And here below is the list of amazing books they’ll be giving away, compiled from hundreds of individual lists submitted by people in the book trade.

You’ll notice that the list contains a “wide array of outstanding books encompassing all types of fiction be it historical, literary, crime and commercial as well as poetry, memoir and young adult. Whether a huge bestseller, a prize-winning debut, a lesser known gem or an undisputed classic, it was felt that every book needed to be an accessible work of enduring quality that people would feel passionate about sharing with others.”

That bit in quotes is from the official World Book Night PR.

You’ll also notice that our own Margaret Atwood is number two on the list (well, it’s alphabetical, but still). Also Yann Martel and Rohinton Mistry.

Not bad representation on a list of the 25 best books in the world!

Way to go, World Book Night! 

We think you should make it a New Year’s resolution to READ EVERY BOOK ON THIS LIST, if you haven’t already. Give them as Christmas gifts to friends who don’t read enough and then make them read all the way through. They’ll thank you for it. Honestly. 

Kate Atkinson - Case Histories (Black Swan)

Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin (Virago)

Alan Bennett - A Life Like Other People’s (Faber/Profile)

John Le Carré - The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (Penguin)

Lee Child - Killing Floor (Bantam)

Carol Ann Duffy - The World’s Wife (Picador)

Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Vintage)

Seamus Heaney - Selected Poems (Faber)

Marian Keyes - Rachel’s Holiday (Penguin)

Mohsin Hamid - The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Penguin)

Ben Macintyre - Agent Zigzag (Bloomsbury)

Gabriel García Márquez - Love in the Time of Cholera (Penguin)

Yann Martel - Life of Pi (Canongate)

Alexander Masters - Stuart: A Life Backwards (Fourth Estate)

Rohinton Mistry - A Fine Balance (Faber)

David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas (Sceptre)

Toni Morrison - Beloved (Vintage)

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Half of a Yellow Sun (Fourth Estate)

David Nicholls - One Day (Hachette/Hodder)

Philip Pullman - Northern Lights (Scholastic)

Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front (Vintage)

C.J. Sansom - Dissolution (Pan)

Nigel Slater - Toast (Fourth Estate)

Muriel Spark - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Penguin)

Sarah Waters - Fingersmith (Virago)

Reprinted from Idolvine.com