World Book Night

Tonight is World Book Night where a million free books are to be given away across the country. I thought it unlikely that any of them would come my way, besides as I already buy enough books to carpet a small island I doubt I'm the target market for this particular campaign. However, when I got home today I found that both my mum and my sister had picked up a free World Book Night book in a local charity shop, a fact I'm rather impressed by, I really imagined it would be one of those vaguely mythical events that you hear about but never see real evidence of - like a lunar eclipse.

Running alongside this is the Alternative World Book Night, a really good idea with an emphasis on supporting independent booksellers by buying a book you really love for someone else and writing on it given in the spirit of World Book Night, March 5th 2011 and bought from [insert name of shop] – please enjoy and tell people about it. In the spirit of the day I popped into Stanfords and bought a copy of J. M. Synge's Aran Islands. The thing is I can't bring myself to give it away - not yet at least, so to make up for my obvious selfishness I'm telling you about it. That way at least I'm following half the instructions.