World Book Day

I thought to myself: I must mark World Book Day with a blog entry - something relevant - but what? I decided to read some of my emails for a change: especially those from all the book sites' mailing lists I've signed up to over the years. I never have to venture far into the world of literature before an unread book jumps out at me, and that's just what happened when I read today's email from lovereading.co.uk.

It puts the spotlight on Quick Reads - described as "short, fast-paced new books designed to encourage reluctant readers to get hooked on books." There are twelve of them on sale (for £2.99) and another twelve coming out in May; and they are only about 100 pages long which is a good thing - there are too many long books in the world already. If authors keep writing such long books shelf-space could be extinct within ten years. I blame computers...or Proust...or Caxton.

Anyway, I made the fatal mistake of browsing through these Quick Reads (a deceptive title, like all those three-for-the-price-of-two offers that lure you into spending twice as much as you intended: however quick they are to read it still means more books I haven't read yet) and one name poked me in the eye: Tom Holt.

Someone Like Me is Tom Holt's contribution to Quick Reads: a fantasy-thriller with a sting in the tail which sounds darkly mysterious and therefore tempting. But here I have to confess: I have no idea what his books are like because I haven't read any of them yet, including...

The Portable Door

by Tom Holt

...which was one of a set of books I won in a competition in the local evening paper. He does come highly recommended - but then don't they all? Time Out magazine described his books as "Dazzling", and New Scientist called them "wildly imaginative". New Scientist?

According to his profile at lovereading.co.uk, Tom Holt studied bar billiards at Oxford, as well as "ancient Greek agriculture and the care and feeding of small, temperamental Japanese motorcycle engines". As someone who briefly studied snooker at Bristol University I feel a definite affinity for him, so I'm moving The Portable Door and Someone Like Me quite a few places up my immense mental To-Be-Read list. It's the least I can do. Sorry, Tom.

But you know what? Turns out it's not really World Book Day at all - only in the UK & Ireland. The rest of the world celebrate World Book Day on April 23rd: Shakespeare's birthday. Apparently, ours is brought forward so that it falls during term-time, which means we get two World Book Days every year. Bloody kids!

The first twelve Quick Reads are: