March 5th is World Book Night!

World Book Night represents the most ambitious and far-reaching celebration of adult books and reading ever attempted in the UK and Ireland. On Saturday, 5 March 2011, two days after World Book Day, one million books will be given away by an army of passionate readers to members of the public across the UK and Ireland. The book give-away will comprise 40,000 copies of each of the 25 carefully selected titles, to be given away by 20,000 ‘givers’, who will each distribute 48 copies of their chosen title to whomever they choose on World Book Night. You can find out more at www.worldbooknight.org

I shall be wandering around giving out copies of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark, a book which celebrates the diversity of education, and an eccentric teacher. It’s told in an unusual way, going back and forth in time, and it’s a book I have always enjoyed. The WBN review of it says:

Romantic, heroic, comic and tragic, unconventional schoolmistress Jean Brodie has become an iconic figure in post-war fiction. Her glamour, freethinking ideas and manipulative charm hold dangerous sway over her girls at the Marcia Blaine Academy – the ‘crème de la crème’ – who become the Brodie Set, introduced to a privileged world of adult games that they will never forget.