The British Council is working in partnership with the London Book Fair and Banipal to give away over 400 books at Earl’s Court tube station during the London Book Fair, 14-16 April 2008. Distribution is co-ordinated in partnership with Litro and will take place as visitors are arriving at the book fair on Monday and Wednesday mornings.

Banipal has created a list of over 150 major titles translated from Arabic into English or written in English by Arab authors as part of a promotional campaign with The Reading Agency to encourage UK public libraries to stock books in translation.  The publishers of the books on this list have kindly the donated copies which will be given away.

BookCrossing started in the United States and has rapidly spread across the world. The dictionary definition is ‘the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise’. Instead of just storing books you’ve already read, register them on www.bookcrossing.com and then release them into the wild for other people to pick up and read. You can track the journey a book takes by looking up the registration number on the BookCrossing website.