Happy World Book Night everyone! I'm out and about in London town later, and am hoping to be approached by one of the 20,000 volunteers who signed up for the mass giveaway – particularly if they come bearing Judge Dredd. After a mass reading of the Sandman books, I'm trying to educate myself in the ways of graphic novels, and apparently this one is "truly classic".
Today's initiative is about giving books to strangers, but there's something particularly wonderful about pressing a book you've loved onto a friend and finding that they love it too. It happened to me two weeks ago: I'd just finished, at a gallop, Neil Gaiman's forthcoming The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and was desperate to discuss it with someone. Fortunately, I was at my parents', so I pressed it on my mum, who shares my love of fantastical fiction; she'd finished it by the next day, and we could rave and dissect together.
I'm still waiting to hear Sarah Crown's take on Stephen King's Misery and Desperation, which I passed on a while back, and I'm now scanning my inner circle for someone to hand Joe Hill's NOS4A2 to - I was properly scared by it, in a way I haven't been for ages, and I want to find another horror fiction fan to pick it over with.
It goes the other way too. A few years ago, a friend gave me a biography of Mary Wesley, Patrick Marnham's Wild Mary. I've loved Wesley's novels for years but had no idea how fascinating she was as a person. I still haven't returned it, and now it feels like it belongs to me. Sorry, Kate.
But how about you? In honour of World Book Night, tell us about the books you've passed on which have found places in the hearts of friends and family, and about those you've had pressed on you which have gone on to become favourites.
