Here’s some news that you may have missed from last week: World Book Night is to be extended to America. The American arm will be led by Carl Lennertz, currently with Harper Collins, and former head of marketing at Foyles, Julia Kingsford, is to become chief executive of the whole charity. The organisers hope that World Book Night is going to live up to its name and make the love of reading and books a global experience.
The event opened in Britain earlier this year and it was an unqualified success. The spectacle of thousands of people donating 1 million books to strangers on Britain’s streets was extensively featured in newspapers and trailed heavily on BBC 2 and Radio 4.
A few dissenters growled beneath the fanfare. As Emily Rhodes pointed out on these pages several months ago, in the eyes of some World Book Night undermined the notion that books have an intrinsic value and cost.
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