World Book Night 2012: A Raging Success

April 23rd is the day Shakespeare was born, and the day he died.  Cervantes also died on April 23rd, and UNESCO marks it as World Book Day.  This year, volunteers in the UK, Ireland, the US, and Germany spent the day giving books away.  I don't know how others fared, but Becky and I had a hell of a time.

In the United States, 53% of males and 39% of females are re-incarcerated after they're released from prison.  The recidivism rate for inmates who read in prison drops to 20% (couple that with a GED, and only 4-5% of inmates return, but our fucked up prison system is a post for another time).  So Becky decided to drop a box of Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle at a women's detention center in downtown Miami.  

It was all razor wire and defeat, smaller and dingier than it looks from the highway (you drive past it all the time on I-95), but that's no reason not to deliver books with a smile.

World Book Night April 23rd, 2012 - sign up by February 1st!

Love books?  Want to share the love?  Go here to sign up and become a book giver awayer.

If you can get one non-reader to read, or convince a light reader to give one of those awesome books a try, it will make the fact that Carl Lennertz won't be publishing me at Harper Collins (because he's too busy being CEO of World Book Night) totally worth it.

You don't remember that story?  Probably because it was part of a many-layered ramble sandwich.

Anyhoo, give some books away!