Edited by Antonia Fraser
This new edition is dedicated to the memory of Simon Gray and Harold Pinter
Introduction by Antonia Fraser
by Victoria Gray
In the summer of 2009, the year after my husband Simon died, I found myself in a small bookshop in upstate New York. The young man at the checkout asked me if I’d like to give someone a book. They had a local scheme collecting books for single mothers. There were three titles to choose from. I gave a copy of Great Expectations to a single mother I never met living in a trailer park in rural New York State. I hope it did something for her; I know it cheered me up.
Back in the UK I became convinced that there would be a way of doing something like this through the internet. I tested the idea on more experienced acquaintances, and wrote to a bookseller suggesting that the moment when the world is worried about the future of the book was the perfect time to celebrate giving a book. All reactions were positive.
Give a Book (UK registered charity no. 1149664) went live in May 2011. Our firm belief is that to give a book, to pass on a good read, is a transaction of worth – not something thrown away, but a gift that is thought about and passed on out of generosity and respect. Our initial aim was to offer books where they would be of particular value in such places as Maggie’s Centres, Age UK and First Story – for escape, companionship, imagination and challenge. We were adamant that we would not get involved with primary schools or prisons – they were too huge for us and there were plenty of long-standing organisations who knew what they were doing.
Three years later, our largest projects are in prisons and primary schools. We almost always go in with the long-established organisations who indeed know what they are doing – we have been privileged to learn from such places as The Reading Agency, National Literacy Trust, Beanstalk and Booktrust. Give a Book is very much needs-led and project-based. We go wherever the gift of a book will make a difference.
There is more information about our projects and partners on the website www.giveabook.org.uk. We go on donating books for book groups in Maggie’s Centres and Age UK. But the groups that Give a Book connects to mainly come from language-deprived worlds. Our work ranges from setting up Magic Breakfast Book Clubs for primary school children who come to school hungry in all sorts of ways, to helping make a library at a mother and baby refuge and supporting Prison Reading Groups. We also give mini-dictionaries to prisoners who complete the Six Book (Adult Literacy) Challenge and supply book bags for children visiting on prison family days.
The people who support us take having and giving books for granted, as second nature. It is the sea we swim in. This is also why we have our Book of the Month slot on the website where new guests tell us about the book that they particularly like to share. Every reader has one – or more than one – as you can see in this wonderful collection. There are people just around the corner who are nothing like as lucky, for whom such ‘pleasurable addiction’ is behind a closed door. Giving a book to a person who really needs one helps open that door – introducing them, in short, to the pleasure of reading.
Give a Book is delighted that Bloomsbury have decided to republish and refresh this excellent and timely volume, at the suggestion of Antonia Fraser, its original editor. And of course we are immeasurably grateful to all the contributors who have so generously shared their work.
Victoria Gray