World Book Night USA 2013

On April 23^rd I participated in World Book Night USA 2013. The purpose of World Book Night is to give free books out to light and non-readers in an effort to encourage them to become readers. To do this, people sign up to be givers and choose thee books from the list of books that will be distributed. One of the three books is chosen and 20 copies of that book is given to the giver to give out.

The book I was given was called “The Tender Bar” by J.R. Moehringer. It's a memoir about growing up around a bar. I'm a bartender, and I gave it out at the bar I worked at to a bunch of my coworkers and my regulars. Some of them haven't read a book in almost 30 years. And they told me as much. In the weeks since giving out the book, I have heard back from a lot of my regulars that they were actually reading the book. Most of them liked it, but the most encouraging response I got was this past Sunday when I was working. My regular came in, and he was really excited. He was actually disappointed that he didn't get to see me earlier in the week because he wanted to tell me that he had about 60 pages left in his second book! He finished The Tender Bar, and was hooked. He had to go get another book. So he found another memoir to read, and quite by accident it was local. He was ecstatic to be reading the book and say “I know that place, I used to play ball in that park!” And he asked me for more books to read, more suggestions. He definitely went from being a non-reader for 30 years to being a reader.