World Book Night America

Gianna, her pimpin' UT Press car, and her book pick
to give away for World Book Night.

Today is the International Day of the Book, also known as St. George's Day, and now also known as World Book Night.  The idea is basically the same--share your love of books and reading by giving away books.  World Book Night America distributed 1,000,000 books to 50,000 givers to be distributed to people all over the country.  These were books donated by publishers and include some great reads--The Poisonwood Bible, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, even The Hunger Games.  Gianna was selected as a giver, and here's what she did with her 20 books to give away.

Gianna:

Gianna picked up her books
from BookPeople in Austin

Well it's here. World Book Night (except that it's day right now). Like most people who were chosen as givers I thought long and hard about where I wanted to hand out my twenty books. That’s not really true; I knew almost immediately where I would send my books.

books, bookmarks,
and candy for US soldiers

Books for Soldiers  is an organization that allows soldiers from all over the world to request books, or movies, or, as is often the case, just a letter. We often have the image of soldiers receiving piles of mail from their large supportive families and communities. That isn’t always the case. I took a long time trying to find the right soldier and in the end settled on a guy who was posted under ‘forgotten soldiers’ – meaning soldiers that get very little in the way of mail. Well good old, let's just call him David, who is part of a 100-person unit, will be helping me pass out copies of The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. It’s a book I only recently read but quickly shot to the top of my favorite book list.

Oh, and I threw some candy in the box as well…give the people what they want is what I say.