Care Homes Encouraged to Apply for Free Books as Part of World Book Night

Each year The Reading Agency host World Book Night, giving away 1000s of books to 'hard to reach/reluctant readers'.

2018's event is being held on 23 April 2018 and this year the organisers want care homes to get involved!

The varied titles, donated by publishers from Penguin Random House and Hachette to small presses Nine Arches and Cassava Republic, include a diverse selection of commercial and literary fiction, poetry, non-fiction and young adult, each selected to inspire people who don’t regularly read to pick up a book and get reading.

With 1 in 4 people in the UK experiencing a mental health problem each year, The Reading Agency’s research shows that reading can increase empathy, improve relationships with others and reduce the symptoms of depression. The charity aims to harness this with several titles exploring mental health and wellbeing on the list, including:

• Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World by Mark Williams and Danny Penman, 
• The Recovery Letters by Olivia Sagan & James Withey (eds.) and Open by Gemma Cairney. Other titles include British Book Awards Book of the Year 2016 
• The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley, poetry collection 
• Kith by Jo Bell and 
• My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal.

The Reading Agency working with public libraries, prisons, colleges, care homes, youth centres, mental health groups and other charities to get books into the hands of new readers and organisations can apply to take part at worldbooknight.org.

The books

The complete list of titles donated by publishers for World Book Night 2018:

• Kith by Jo Bell (Nine Arches)
• Our Summer Together by Fanny Blake (Orion)
• Open by Gemma Cairney (Pan Macmillan)
• Dangerous Lady by Martina Cole (Headline)
• Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey (Penguin)
• After the Fire by Will Hill (Usborne)
• The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (Vintage)
• The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley (John Murray)
• Gilded Cage by Vic James (Pan Macmillan)
• The Beach Wedding by Dorothy Koomson (Cornerstone)
• Satellite by Nick Lake (Hachette Children’s)
• Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart (Bonnier)
• You Don’t Know Me by Imran Mahmood (Michael Joseph)
• Like A Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun by Sarah Ladipo Manyika (Cassava Republic)
• My Everything by Katie Marsh (Hodder)
• One of us is Lying by Karen M McManus (Penguin Random House Children’s)
• At My Mother’s Knee by Paul O’Grady (Transworld)
• The Recovery Letters, Olivia Sagan & James Withey (Eds.) (Jessica Kingsley)
• The Detective’s Daughter by Lesley Thomson (Head of Zeus)
• My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal (Penguin)
• What the Dog Knows by Cat Warren (Scribe)
• Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World by Mark Williams and Danny Penman (Piatkus)
• Carry on Jeeves by PG Wodehouse (Cornerstone)

Get involved

If you work for a library, prison, college, care home, youth centre or other organisation who can reach people who don’t regularly read, you can apply to receive books on behalf of your organisation to celebrate World Book Night 2018.

Apply online using the link at the bottom of this page and if successful, you will receive copies of one of the titles from the list (you can choose up to 5 when you apply). 

You should select either a small (80 copies) or large (160 copies) quantity of books.

Applications will remain open until 31 January, and successful organisations will be informed in February

Apply for your organisation to take part in World Book Night 2018