The whys and the wherefores

World Book Night - I first heard about World Book Night on BBC2's The Culture Show. It is a wonderful idea; to give away 1,000,000 free books via 20,000 givers. I have always loved to read, the power of the written word to inform, to shock, to make us cry, to make us laugh, to transport us to exotic worlds. I am also taken with the sharing of books, either left on a bus seat for someone else to discover or lovingly wrapped and given to someone close to you as a present.

Cloud Atlas - The book I have chosen to distribute is David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. It has been a long time since I have read a book which surprised me. It is written in a number of different styles and has an unusual structure. I hope that everyone who reads it will enjoy it - I think that's unlikely, its quite stylised and may not be to everyones taste. However, if a book gets people thinking, or trying different novels and writers, that is a good enough reason to share our literature.

The Plan - I had thought of giving books to the friends of my friends, but that became logistically complex. I also thought of going to places where the initial letter spelt out Cloud Atlas; Corbridge, Lynemouth, Ovingham.. etc. This felt too easy, though would have provided me with a nice drive through the Northumberland Countryside. I've decided to give out the books using an A to Z of professions; give one copy to an Accountant, one to a Baker, etc, etc.

The reason for this - I wanted to capture a part of the wide range of people who read books - for those of us who love to read, we come from all sorts of backgrounds. We are all sorts of sizes and shapes. We have different views. We come from all walks of life and all sorts of professions.

Obviously, the letter Z provides a challenge. Let me know if you know any zoologists in Newcastle. The remainder, I'll split and hand out to complete strangers, and friends and family. I'm going to include a note with a link to this blog in the books I hand out, asking people to post some thoughts on Cloud Atlas, World Book Night or reading in general. It should be interesting.