Matawan Aberdeen Library Volunteers to Help Promote Reading on World Book Night

The following is a press release from the Matawan Aberdeen Public Library:

Volunteers with the Matawan Aberdeen Public Library will join with 25,000 book lovers nationwide to help give away half a million free books on Tuesday, April 23.

The effort, known as World Book Night, provides thousands of free, specially printed paperbacks to those with limited access to books across the country on a single day. The volunteers will help promote reading by going out into their communities and sharing the free copies of the books they love on a personal basis.

Local volunteers from Matawan and Aberdeen came together on April 16 at the Matawan Aberdeen Public Library to collect the books that they will share with diverse locations such as veteran hospitals, roller skating rinks, mass transit, nursing homes, schools and food pantries.

The books were chosen by an independent panel of booksellers and librarians through several rounds of voting. The printing of free books was made possible through the generosity of authors, publishers and book manufacturing companies.

Authors Ann Patchett and James Patterson are this year’s honorary chairs of World Book Night.

Those interested in volunteering to assist in next year’s World Book Night, visit the 501(c)3’s website at  www.WorldBookNight.org.

The 30 World Book Night U.S. titles for 2013, alphabetical by author, are:

• The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (Anchor Books/Random House)
• City of Thieves, David Benioff (Plume/Penguin Group (USA))
• Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (Simon & Schuster Paperbacks)
• My Antonia, Willa Cather (Dover)
• Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier (Plume/Penguin Group (USA))
• The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (Vintage/Random House)
• La casa en Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros; translated by Elena Poniatowska  (Vintage Español/Random House)
• The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho (HarperOne/HarperCollins)
• El Alquimista, Paulo Coelho (Rayo/HarperCollins)
• The Language of Flowers, Vanessa Diffenbaugh (Ballantine Books/Random House)
• The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan (Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Bossypants, Tina Fey (Reagan Arthur/Back Bay Books)
• Good Omens, Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett  (William Morrow Paperbacks/HarperCollins)
• Still Alice, Lisa Genova (Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster)
• Looking for Alaska, John Green (Speak/Penguin Group (USA))
• Playing for Pizza, John Grisham (Bantam/Random House)
• Mudbound, Hillary Jordan (Algonquin Books/Workman Publishing)
• The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster; illus. by Jules Feiffer (Yearling/Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers)
• Moneyball, Michael Lewis (W. W. Norton)
• The Tender Bar, J. R. Moehringer (Hyperion)
• Devil in a Blue Dress, Walter Mosley (Simon & Schuster)
• Middle School, The Worst Years of My Life, James Patterson and Chris Tebbetts (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
• Population: 485, Michael Perry (HarperPerennial/HarperCollins)
• The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan (Disney-Hyperion)
• Montana Sky, Nora Roberts (Berkley/Penguin Group (USA))
• Look Again, Lisa Scottoline (St. Martin’s)
• Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris (Back Bay Books/Little Brown)
• The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith (Anchor Books/Random House)
• Glaciers, Alexis M. Smith (Tin House Books)
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Mark Twain (Dover)
• Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward (Bloomsbury)
• Favorite American Poems (Large Print edition) various authors (Dover)