DailyGood

For the last 27 years, DailyGood newsletters have offered a daily email that inspires you to respond to life with creativity and kindness. To join a community of 152,453 subscribers, subscribe here.

Jun 1, 2012

"Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul." --Joyce Carol Oates

The Day We Gave Away Millions...of Books

A young woman is jumping up and down in front of the New York Public Library wearing a sandwich sign that says, "Hate Reading? Talk To Me!" She's waving around several copies of "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls...Men and women in suits breeze by, but some passersby are curious about the spectacle. If you were roaming the streets of New York City or London last month you may have encountered a similar scene: Zealous readers handing out award-winning novels by the boxful. Last month was the second annual World Book Night, an event for which authors, booksellers, librarians, publishers and simply passionate literary fiends gave away 500,000 free memoirs, novels and non-fiction titles in the United States and 1 million in the United Kingdom, where it all began last year.