Best Regards from Aileen Ibardaloza-Cassinetto

Hi everyone

I'm one of the founding members of World Book Night (http://www.worldbooknight.org/), a book give-away project that celebrates the power of reading and writing. The project was launched in Trafalgar Square last week, and readers included Alan Bennett, John le Carre, Margaret Atwood, Tracy Chevalier and many others. Quoting C.S.Lewis, WBN founder Jamie Byng said, "We read to know we are not alone"; author Alan Bennett recalled how, being poor, his only entertainment as a child came from the local library. The same library, and others like it, are now in danger of being closed down due to lack of funding.

I came home to San Francisco with 48 copies of the 1 million books especially printed for World Book Night. I chose Toni Morrison's Beloved and pledged to distribute it to libraries in the Philippines, specifically a municipality in an island province where there is no library and where my husband and I hope to start a Reading Room at least.

I have extra copies of Beloved to give away to the first 10 people to email (pls PM me your mailing address, as well); to the authors out there, if you are so inclined, I'd appreciate it if you can also send me a copy of your book and I'll include it with the books I'm bringing to the Philippines.

Thank you.

Best
Aileen Ibardaloza-Cassinetto