World Book Night Announces New Developments for Year Three

World Book Night U.S. Executive Director Carl Lennertz announced the following developments for this year’s celebration:

• The April 22 launch event in New York City will be at the New York Public Library main building and will feature Malcolm Gladwell, Garrison Keillor, Esmeralda Santiago, Walter Dean Meyers, Tobias Wolfe, Victoria Bond, and T.R. Simon. The event will be live-streamed and will be held in the Edna Barnes Salomon Room. Twenty NYPL branches will also host poetry workshops on the 23rd.
• The April 22 WBN author event roster features two dozen simultaneous events across the country; a map of confirmed events will be posted on the WBN website on February 1.
• Livrada and Ingram will produce a proprietary WBN e-book of short pieces by booksellers, librarians, and author/givers that will be free to all. WBN e-book launch events will take place at Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C., and Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Texas.
• Dover Publications will print a special WBN edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets to be given out on April 23 at select theaters and Shakespeare productions across the country. Booksellers and librarians who want to host a local high school drama club on April 23 can e-mail [email protected] with a request for copies of the sonnets.

Lennertz added: “We have a lot more cooking — national media, audio downloads, a new WBN edition jacket design, and more surprises. Also, we are a month ahead of schedule on giver acceptance lists and will be getting the information to stores and libraries in March. A half million WBN books are printing now, and we are all systems go!

“We have a great number of indies participating as host locations. Thank you! While the window to register has closed for this year, individual booksellers can still e-mail [email protected] for an Excel spreadsheet to fill out for a box or extra boxes of books.”