World Book Night

Ladies and Gentlemen, you're going to have to start voting. I had loads of fun with all the different songs you came up with Rain in the title. I knew quite a few, but I listened to some great new ones. It's just been so much fun.

World Book Night is a project to give away 40,000 copies of 25 titles of books. It kicked off on the 5th of March. The idea is to read the book and then to leave it in a public place for the next person to come along and read it, or to give it away to friends, family or work colleagues. Each book has an identification number in the back. You register on the website when you've got your book and encourage the person you give the book to, to do the same and keep the chain going.

Now, this project is based in the UK and Ireland, but people, let's be a little bit exciting here. You my blog readers are from all over the globe. 'World' in my reality means the Earth. Therefore, I'm being really cheeky here.

I'm not going to accept any more song titles with Rain in them. Have a look through the comments and then chose the most awesome Rain Song. No, you can't vote for yourself. No, you can't vote more that once. You gotta tell me why that song is awesome. I will tot up the votes on mid-day Friday. That's 12:00, on the 18th March.

Whoever gets the most votes will get the book. I will post it to you, so the winner will have to send me your IRL name and address, once you've got the book, you've got to register it on-line.  I promise not to dooce you on the blog, send suspicious people round your house or order pizza in your name. If you're not happy with breach of anonymity, if you're a bit shy and retiring, not a problem. I'll try and e-mail you first to see if you're happy with me having your details and if you want the book, fantastic, if not, we'll go to runner up.

Anyway, enough about me here's the book I've got -

Stuart - a life lived backwards, is the story of a remarkable friendship between a reclusive writer and illustrator and a chaotic, knife-wielding beggar whom he gets to know during a campaign to release two charity workers from prison.



Interwoven into this is Stuart’s confession: the story of his life, told backwards. With humour, compassion (and exasperation) Masters slowly works back through post-office heists, prison riots and the exact day Stuart discovered violence, to unfold the reasons why he changed from a happy-go-lucky little boy into a polydrug-addicted, alcoholic Jekyll and Hyde personality.


Funny, despairing, brilliantly written and full of surprises: this is the most original and moving biography of recent years.


Alexander Masters

It's a brilliant read. Funny, honest and heart breaking.