Community Corner

Volunteers from Barbara's Bookstore Giving Out Free Books Today

Barbara's Bookstore in Burr Ridge is joining the national World Book Night effort to give away half a million books today.

is joining in a national effort to give away half a million books today. It's part of the first World Book Night U.S., a campaign to promote reading.

Some volunteers will be picking up books at and then going out into the community to share them in hospitals, nursing homes, schools, ballparks, mass transit, diners, and various other locations.

The World Book Night U.S. campaign  will give away a half million free, specially printed books in 6,000 towns and cities in the United States. Volunteers will personally give out free copies of a book they enjoy to new or light readers. One goal is to reach potential readers in underserved places

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"We at Barbara's Burr Ridge are proud to be a partner in the first World Book Night in the U.S., following the impressive launch of this campaign by our bookselling and publishing colleagues in the UK and Ireland last year," said the store on its website.

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

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 The 30 World Book Night U.S. titles for 2012, alphabetical by author, are:  

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (Ballantine)

Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger (Da Capo)

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (Beacon Press)

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (Tor)

Little Bee by Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster)

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)

Blood Work by Michael Connelly (Grand Central)

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (Riverhead); a Spanish-language edition, La breve y maravillosa vida de Óscar Wao (Vintage Espanol), will also be made available.

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick)

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (Vintage)

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (Grove Atlantic)

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick (Algonquin)

Q is for Quarry by Sue Grafton (Berkley)

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead)

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (Ballantine)

The Stand by Stephen King (Anchor)

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (Perennial)

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (W.W. Norton)

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (Mariner)

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (Mariner)

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (Perennial)

My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult (Atria)

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (Picador)

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (Back Bay)

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (Broadway)

Just Kids by Patti Smith (Ecco)

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Scribner)

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Knopf Books for Young Readers)


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