[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":11},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-post-world-book-night-2011":3},{"_type":4,"body":5,"bodyHtml":6,"excerpt":5,"featuredImage":5,"publishedAt":7,"slug":8,"tags":9,"title":10},"blogPost",null,"\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/wbn11_3-e07a074773.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nOn Friday night, Mary, Stuart and I went over to Trafalgar Square to see what was happening for its first-ever World Book Night party. Although the cold was fierce, the line-up was amazing, and I took some shaky video footage of some of the speakers. The readings by Alan Bennett and David Nicholls were my favourite, so I've shown them in full, and Lemn Sissay had the best delivery, but in the video, you can dip into a few other talks, although I missed those by \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_waters\">Sarah Waters\u003C/a>, \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_O%27Brien\">Edna O'Brien\u003C/a>, \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dbc_pierre\">DBC Pierre\u003C/a>, \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Everett\">Rupert Everett\u003C/a> and several people who were taking part in the book giveaway. Margaret Atwood looked genuinely amazed to see so many thousands of people gathered in the cold just to see a bunch of writers talk, and my visiting sister said the same, that she didn't think you could get a huge group of North Americans together like that without bringing bands or some sort of performance artists to whip up the crowd. I wonder. But it was a great evening.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Clj-embed id=\"668\"/>\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET-4IVVIqqM\">\u003Ci>YouTube Link\u003C/a>\u003C/i>\\r\n\\r\nHere's the menu for the video, in case you want to skip around:\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Bennett\">Alan Bennett\u003C/a> (from the start)\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemn_Sissay\">Lemn Sissay\u003C/a> (7:20)\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nicholls_%28writer%29\">David Nicholls\u003C/a> (8:25)\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Atwood\">Margaret Atwood\u003C/a> (13:23)\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson\">Boris Johnson\u003C/a> (15:12)\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Cave\">Nick Cave\u003C/a> (15:44)\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_McPherson\">Suggs (Graham McPherson)\u003C/a> (16:32)\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monica_Ali\">Monica Ali\u003C/a> (17:43)\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_le_Carr%C3%A9\">John le Carré\u003C/a> (17:52)\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracy_Chevalier\">Tracy Chevalier\u003C/a> (18:18)\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Pullman\">Philip Pullman\u003C/a> (18:27)\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Haddon\">Mark Haddon\u003C/a> (18:34)\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayley_Atwell\">Hayley Atwell\u003C/a> & \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Tucci\">Stanley Tucci\u003C/a> (19:38-22:48)\\r\n\\r\n\u003C!--more More photos and links under the cut-->\\r\nI would never have dared shoot this kind of footage at a literature festival, but because it was open to the public on Trafalgar Square, it seemed all right.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/wbn11_6-2eb539c0f1.jpg\">\\r\n\u003Ci>DBC Pierre (author of Vernon God Little) and presenter \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Norton\">Graham Norton\u003C/a>\u003C/i>\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/wbn11_1-c790f98d8e.jpg\">\\r\n\u003Ci>The gang from Scholastic! I've had fun doing events with Fiz Osborne (centre) and Alex Richardson (front right).\u003C/i>\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/wbn11_2-7bd5918530.jpg\">\\r\n\u003Ci>Friend and critique group member Heather Kilgour with her husband Perraine\u003C/i>\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/wbn11_5-2594505a0e.jpg\">\\r\n\u003Ci>Rupert Everett\u003C/i>\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/wbn11_4-044c46af26.jpg\">\\r\n\u003Ci>John LeCarré\u003C/i>\\r\n\\r\nHey, look! A bunch of publishers were getting their authors to blog for World Book Day, and the writer \u003Ca href=\"http://www.stevecolebooks.co.uk\">Steve Cole\u003C/a> gave \u003Ca href=\"http://www.picklerye.com\">\u003Ci>Vern and Lettuce\u003C/i>\u003C/a> a mention here on the \u003Ca href=\"http://www.talkaboutrandom.co.uk/index.php/tag/steve-cole/\">Random House Children's Book blog\u003C/a>. Hurrah! (Thanks, Steve! Click on the image to read his full blog post, it's very funny.)\\r\n\\r\n\u003Ca href=\"http://www.talkaboutrandom.co.uk/index.php/tag/steve-cole/\">\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/cole_wbd_random-ad2c0605fa.jpg\">\u003C/a>\\r\n\\r\nYou can read \u003Ca href=\"http://philipreeve.blogspot.com/2011/03/more-world-book-day-fun.html\">Philip Reeve's account of his World Book Day here\u003C/a>. (He got well McIntyred!)","2011-03-06T18:57:00.000Z","world-book-night-2011",[],"world book night 2011",1776628719833]