A novel state

So, the sun has set on World Book Night. A million books have found new homes. Of course, the notion of giving away books for free was always going to be controversial (see Emily Rhodes) and it inspired some furore. There was a squabble on Newsnight about the event’s deleterious effects on independent booksellers and Boyd Tonkin raised the pertinent point that it burgles valuable airtime from opposing library closures. Because, as one woman said at the Manchester live event: ‘It’s like World Book Night everyday in a library.’
 
Such niggles were addressed in part during the first offering of Saturday’s dedicated evening of books on BBC2, all courtesy of The Culture Show. A Million Books for Free, presented by the affable Andrew Graham-Dixon, touched on the ethics of books-for-free over a tomato juice and tap water with Sarah Waters and David Nicholls. But, apart from the repeated truism that authors need to be supported, such concerns were far from the authors’ minds.