With Monday 23rd looming, book givers are starting to panic. Rather than being given her first choice, Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, one young mother has been assigned to the task of giving away 24 copies of a Swedish book about vampires, and how should she go about it when out and about with her young daughter? Easy, says one helpful comment on the blog: try the local blood donor centre.

Meanwhile, authors of books being given away are getting in on the act of becoming ‘givers’ by having extracts of other novels printed in the back of the special World Book Night publications. Stephen King set the stakes high with his endorsement of Hesh Kestin’s The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats as ‘the best novel book never read,’ while Terry Pratchet recommends curling up with a G K Chesterton and Iain Banks suggests spending time with an Alan Moore.  

“The idea is really very simple,” said World Book Night chief executive Julia Kingsford. “World Book Night is all about encouraging people to embark on a reading journey and we believe that you’re never more vulnerable to your next read as you are when you’ve just finished a book. We are really excited at the prospect of being able to put another great book into the hands, hearts and minds of new readers the minute they’ve finished their WBN book.  Asking our World Book Night authors to recommend something seems like the perfect way to introduce new books and writers to readers and encourage people to keep on reading.”

For a bookshop with a difference, look no further…http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9124067/London-Book-Barge-A-bookshop-to-float-your-boat.html

Sometimes it is a chore to plug a friend’s book; this time it is the greatest pleasure. Jen Campbell is a poet who also works as a bookseller, whose sense of the ridiculous helps her recognise a good anecdote when she hears one, which in turn has led to a collection called Weird Things People Say in Bookshops (all true). It all started with a tweet from John Cleese asking about pet peeves, led to a blog and the idea was snapped up by publishers (damn you, Jen). If you are searching for a humorous gift for a bookish friend, you can find it at your local store, wedged between Jeremy Clarkson and Simon’s Cat.  Click on the link below to hear Jen on Open Book:.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qp6p 

Right now, someone, somewhere, who thinks on a larger scale than you or I, is dreaming of something magnificent. This is the incredible result… 

http://flavorwire.com/270701/enormous-sculptures-of-books-exploding-out-of-buildings

When French back-packer Agnes Varnier discovered that she had mistakenly taken a rucksack belonging to Jonathan Smith instead of her own, she managed to track down its owner…via his local library.

When looking for clues about the rucksack’s owner – and let’s face it, who wouldn’t have a good rummage? - she came across two books, including a copy of Lonely Planet’s Central America On A Shoestring, borrowed from the Millennium Library in Norwich.

From there, contact was quickly made; the library contacted his mother; an email address was obtained and a handover arranged.

Meanwhile Mr Smith was frantic over the loss of his toothbrush.

Because I am possibly the most pedantic person on the planet, I have several thoughts when reading this feel-good story in the Metro:

1) What was the second book? Why should only Lonely Planet get a plug? 

2) Talk about travelling on a shoestring! Surely there is something in the Millennium Library’s terms and conditions that prohibits members from taking borrowed books half way round the world in a ruck sack? I have been travelling with rucksacks and, I can tell you, even if your bag is made of finest Gortex, books (particularly paperbacks) do not have very good prospects of survival. I have, naturally, looked on-line, and the fact that there are no such restrictions seems to be an appalling oversight. I had imagined the spokesman for Norwich Library saying, ‘This just shows how beneficial it is to be a member of the library service,’ rubbing his hands together with an evil glint, preparing to rubber-stamp some official summons-type document, complete with hefty fine. Up to 15 books (and 15 talking books – woah! They have books that can TALK!) can be borrowed at a time for a normal period of 3 weeks, but books can be renewed up to 3 times, provided no one else wants them. What are they going to do if you are 5000 miles (which is, as the Metro kindly points out – thank you, I was about to reach for my measuring tape - 8000km) away? You can imagine the poor librarian saying, ‘I’m sorry, you’ll have to wait until Mr Smith is back from Guatemala.’   

3) The kind of person who does not buy his own travel guide after conducting initial research probably deserves to lose his rucksack on a bus.

4) Is Agnes the first person not to have Data Protection quoted at her when attempting  to get personal information such as an email address out of the an official source? She must be a genius negotiator.     

PS: You can so tell from the photograph of the pair that this was not the beginning of a beautiful friendship.   

In a week when the news has left me jaded, my favourite story has been that of a 1938 Austin Seven Ruby which has just passed its first MOT, 54 years after it was last on the road. On 18th February 1941, the same car was almost written off by a Luftwaffe bomb in the town of Newmarket, Suffolk. Its owner, Alice Day, now 97, bought the vehicle from her father for £145 in 1938. She had parked the car outside her hairdressers minutes before the entire High Street was destroyed. Alice’s own escape was equally miraculous:

With sirens sounding, she went back to get her handbag because my engagement ring was in it. ‘As I put the ring on my finger I remember the yellow walls of the salon seemed to bend in two and without any bang whatsoever this tremendous force hit me in the back and blew me the length of the salon through the open doors. I finished up on a narrow ledge a large beam over the top of me holding up what was left of the building. I lay under the beam until I heard Mr Jellis the hairdressing trainer yelling at me “Stay where you are someone will come and get you”.’

Six others were not so lucky.