From Treasure Island to Casino Royale, and Judge Dredd to Girl with a Pearl Earring, 400,000 books are set to be given away by 20,000 volunteers as part of World Book Night on Tuesday in an attempt to spread the love of reading around the UK.
Described as a "kind of benign Ponzi scheme for the mighty word" by the award-winning author Rose Tremain, whose novel The Road Home will be part of the mass giveaway, World Book Night is now in its third year, with events also taking place in Ireland and the US to mark Unesco's International Day of the Book on 23 April. The 20 specially printed books chosen for the UK range from thrillers by Sophie Hannah and Andy McNab to comic detective stories from Alexander McCall Smith and Jasper Fforde, literary fiction from Sebastian Barry and Bernard Schlink and even a graphic novel, Judge Dredd: The Dark Judges by John Wagner.
Each of the 20,000 volunteers to sign up for the event has been given 20 copies of their chosen title, and will be giving them away on Tuesday to potential readers around the country. A further 100,000 books – bringing the total number to half a million – will be distributed in venues including hospitals, shelters, care homes, community centres and prisons.
The author Tracy Chevalier, whose historical novel Girl with a Pearl Earring will be part of the giveaway, has also signed up as a volunteer, and has plumped for Tremain's Orange prize-winning novel The Road Home as her free book of choice. "The idea is to encourage people who don't read much to give it a try, but it's not always easy to know who those people are," she wrote in Review this weekend.
In 2011, Chevalier handed out copies of Toni Morrison's novel Beloved on the London underground, and said "though it was a great pleasure to jump off and watch a dozen people opening their books as the train pulled away, I wasn't sure I was really getting [them] to people who don't read." In 2012, she "spent a little more time with each person", choosing only people who weren't reading anything at Camden Town station, and telling them why How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff was a great book.
This year, Chevalier is planning to target restaurant employees, because Tremain's protagonist Lev is an eastern European who emigrates to London and ends up working in the restaurant trade. "Anyone who has moved to London from somewhere else can relate to Lev's struggle to find a place to live, a job, friends, and a future," she said. "Now I have the task of finding non-London-born non-readers."
Tremain said that Lev has read very few books "in his arduous life as a sawmill worker in Eastern Europe", but when he comes to England he is given a copy of Hamlet by his friend Lydia.
"Hamlet is of course way too difficult for a man who has difficulty distinguishing 'to be or not to be' from 'B&B', but he struggles on with it and eventually finds some affinity with the anguished prince of Denmark," said Tremain. "The reading plays a part in opening up and transforming Lev's life. And this we know from voices around the world: books can transform lives. So let's hope World Book Night will act as a kind of benign Ponzi scheme for the mighty word."
Tremain will be appearing at a major World Book Night event at London's Southbank Centre tomorrow, where host Hardeep Singh Kohli will present readings from authors including Barry, Chevalier, Charles Dance, Victoria Hislop, Andrew Motion and Alice Oswald.
The poet Jackie Kay, whose memoir Red Dust Road is also one of the 20 titles to be given away, said that "World Book Night strips everything away to the bare essential: the good-hearted feeling of a book in your hand, a companion by your side, the best of friends on your road through life".
Kay will be performing at this year's flagship World Book Night event in Liverpool, alongside authors including Frank Cottrell Boyce, Jasper Fforde, Philippa Gregory, Patrick Ness and Jeanette Winterson.
More than 2,000 libraries will also be taking part in the celebrations of books, with Blake Morrison to appear at Lewisham library, a murder mystery evening with Ann Cleeves in Maidstone and a World Book Night-inspired pop-up film festival in Tameside, Greater Manchester. Staff at the nearby Lionacleit library, meanwhile, have ensured that books will be transported by mail, bus, aeroplane and ferry to the furthest reaches of the Outer Hebrides.
"From the smallest communities in the Highlands to those in our largest metropolitan centres, World Book Night has an incredible power to unite people from across society," said chief executive Julia Kingsford. "It is amazing to see the passion of the people who come together to share in World Book Night and spread their love of reading."
The 20 World Book Night titles:
The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry (Faber)
Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman (RHCB)
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier (HarperCollins)
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (Hodder)
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming (Vintage)
A Little History of the World by EH Gombrich (Yale)
The White Queen by Philippa Gregory (Simon & Schuster)
Little Face by Sophie Hannah (Hodder)
Damage by Josephine Hart (Virago)
The Island by Victoria Hislop (Headline)
Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay (Picador)
Last Night Another Soldier by Andy McNab (Transworld)
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes (Penguin)
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (Walker)
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink (Orion)
No 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith (Little, Brown)
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (Penguin)
The Road Home by Rose Tremain (Vintage)
Judge Dredd: The Dark Judges by John Wagner (Rebellion)
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson (Vintage)
