"What I love so much about World Book Night is that it not only spreads the love of books and reading, but it catalyzes connections that might never otherwise take place. These people I met today were standing mostly apart from one another, dwelling in their own thoughts, but with the introduction of a free book and the simple question, 'Do you like to read?' there was suddenly camaraderie and community. When I left, several people were standing closer together in groups, reading the back cover or flipping through the pages, and talking. One woman, after learning what the book was about, said to another, 'We can talk about this on the ride.' "

The third annual World Book Night U.S., held yesterday, was the biggest ever: more than 29,000 givers distributed some 580,000 copies of 39 titles to new or light readers. Each giver handed out 20 copies of one of the books, a range of adult and YA titles that included some of the most popular titles of the past few decades and included, for the first time, a graphic novel as well as a Spanish-language edition, several large-print editions, a collection of poems, Shakespeare's complete sonnets--a title for just about any interest.

Across the country, givers picked up their books from libraries and bookstores--many independents, Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million stores hosted celebratory parties--and then fanned out to hand out the free books at a wide variety of locations, including schools, hospitals, transit centers, nursing homes and shelters.

Book Passage staff giving out books to San Francisco ferry commuters for World Book Night.

Some people gave out books to passersby in public places--on the street or at subway or bus stations. Others were especially creative. Among our favorites: the Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side in New York City gave a book with their meals to more than 1,000 Meals on Wheels recipients. Wait Till Next Year, Doris Kearns Goodwin's baseball memoir, was distributed at the Yankees-Red Sox game at Fenway Park. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson was given out at the U.S. side of the Otay Mesa border crossing with Mexico in San Diego

World Book Night U.S. executive director Carl Lennertz commented: "Our volunteers are caring people who want to extend the simple but essential gift of a book to those who perhaps have never owned a book. It is an act of kindness, and it can be life-changing, for the recipient and giver alike."

Here's a sampling of WBN U.S. action and reactions from across the country:
 
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World Book Night USA: At 2:48 p.m.: "EVERYBODY, WE'VE BEEN TRENDING FOR 4+ HRS. SO HAPPY. LET'S KEEP IT UP!" #muchyay #WBN2014

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Jamie Ford, Maria Semple and friends at Elliott Bay.

Author Jamie Ford: "Happy World Book Night! Taking a selfie with Maria Semple and all the givers at Elliott Bay Book Company. Photo by Justus."

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On stage with World Book Night U.S.: "#wbn2014 books being set up to give out at the @Matildabroadway matinee! Volunteers from Matilda, @TheBwayLeague @Youngtopub and our own WBN team!" From Matilda's Facebook page: "Our matinee audience is getting a surprise today, thanks to World Book Night USA! Happy #WBN2014!" And: "Third stop on out Theater Hopping: Cinderella! #wbn2014 books will find new homes!"

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Best early Twitter exchange:

Octavia Books, New Orleans, La.: "World Book Night powers activate!"

Village Books, Bellingham, Wash.: "@octaviabooks We take the form of Givers of Awesomeness!"

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Bookshop Santa Cruz: "TODAY IS WBN2014! A tip for givers: Remember that anyone you meet can share an amazing story, shift your perspective & teach you something."

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Inkwood Books, Tampa, Fla. shared Rooster & the Till's great pic: "Myles is super excited to give out 24 copies of Kitchen Confidential for World Book Night today! Come get you one." And this, from an indie bike shop: "Today/Tonight is World Book Night, stop by City Bike Tampa for a free copy of Wild by Cheryl Strayed and join everyone this evening at Inkwood Books from 7-9pm for a World of Grilled Cheese and Beer Party. Don't forget to see what other books are being given away at other local businesses today too!"

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#WBN at The King's English.

The King's English Bookshop, Salt Lake City, Utah: "World Book Night Eve at TKE! Thanks to the SLC Police and Fire Department!"

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Liberty Bay Books, Poulsbo, Wash.: "Love giving out books to our troops!"

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For the third year in a row, Odyssey Bookshop, South Hadley, Mass., brought the gift of books to the Care Center in Holyoke, which "offers an alternative education program for pregnant and parenting teens and young women," MassLive reported. Odyssey owner Joan Grenier, her husband, Jon Weissman, and store manager Emily Crowe distributed copies of Code Name Verity, Zora and Me, The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Dog Stars.

"We are booklovers. We want to share this enthusiasm of the written word with people who haven't discovered the love of books," Crowe observed.

I'm excited to read," said Maryann Alamo, who added that receiving the books was "a good experience" and she would like to help give away books for next year's World Book Night.

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Fountain Bookstore, Richmond, Va.: "A guy just thanked me for his @Bourdain book. He said 'I have always wanted to read this book. I don't read. I'm starting now.' "

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Doylestown Bookshop, Doylestown, Pa.: "@DoylestownBooks is taking to the streets in #doylestown to spread the joy of reading." 

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Deborah's Place Chicago: ‏"We're grateful to receive books for our residents on World Book Night." #WBN2014 http://tinyurl.com/kng53wv

Volunteers from the Henry Street Settlement in N.Y.C.

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Albany, N.Y., Public Library: "We are braving the cold on Washington Ave for #WBN2014!"

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Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, Mass.: "Proud to be a World Book Night store! @wbnamerica #WBN2014 Have fun tonight everyone."

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The Regulator Bookshop, Durham, N.C.: "Free books on 9th street in honor of #‎WorldBookNight, while supplies last!" 

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Henry St. Settlement:‏ "Our Meals on Wheels staff delivered free @wbnamerica to 1,000 #senior clients in #Manhattan today!"

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Book givers from Charlotte Mecklenburg Library

Char Meck Library, Charlotte/Mecklenburg, N.C.: ‏"We're at Main & Beatties Fd now with free books for light & non-readers!... Spreading the Love of Reading, Person to Person! at Main Library!"

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Avid Bookshop, Athens, Ga.: "Lovely Rachel gives out #Bobcat (a book she adores) at her dentist's office!"

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Book industry Charitable Foundation: "@BincFoundation Kit is giving out Catch 22 & the Megabus is her first stop. For all the travelers who don't have reading material."

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Bluebird Book Bus: "Parting shot from #WBN2014 in #StPete FL. Happy reading, folks!" http://instagram.com/p/nJuNl0kdjn/

Customers are spending less money at Amazon.com in states where it collects sales tax, according to a recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, which focused on five states--California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia. The study found that households living in states where Amazon began collecting sales tax reduced Amazon expenditures by 9.5%, with the effect more pronounced for larger purchases.

NBER found that consumers buying less from Amazon increased purchases at the online operations of other retailers by 19.8% and at local bricks-and-mortar retailers by 2%. For purchases over $300, the "substitution effect is more pronounced."

The study concluded that "to a small degree, the tax legislation achieved its objective of restoring retail activity to local communities, though most of the gains in 'leveling the playing field' are garnered by the online operations of retailers.... Households substitute Amazon with other retailers: either online retailers who are exempt from collecting sales tax, or in-state retailers (online and brick-and-mortar)."

"Tax collection does seem to have the effect of increasing competition in the marketplace, but it's not necessarily driving consumers to go back to the mom and pop stores that once filled Main Streets of the country--unless mom and pop also happen to have a good e-commerce aspect to their operation," Consumerist wrote.

Lois Wallace, whose Wallace Literary Agency "did not match the size of the big firms, [but] it nevertheless gained prestige through its clients, among them William F. Buckley Jr., Joan Didion and Don DeLillo," died April 4, the New York Times reported. She was 73. One of her early triumphs came in the late 1960s when she was working at William Morris. She suggested her client Erich Segal turn a screenplay into a novel before the movie was made. Love Story ultimately spent more than a year on the Times bestseller list and has sold tens of millions of copies.

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Librarian and author Eliza T. Dresang, the Beverly Cleary Professor in Children and Youth Services at the University of Washington Information School, died on April 21. She was 72. "She was perhaps best known for her pivotal book Radical Change: Books for Youth in a Digital Age," wrote School Library Journal in its tribute, "in which she discussed more than 200 titles for children and young adults that she believed were crucial for educators to be aware in light of the new digital world."

The staff at Port Washington, N.Y., Public Library had their dancing shoes on and were recently captured on video grooving to Pharrell Williams ubiquitous hit song "Happy."

Congratulations to Eight Cousins, Falmouth, Mass., and Hickory Stick Bookshop, Washington, Conn., which Yankee magazine selected as best children's bookstore and best country bookstore, respectively, in the magazine's "best of New England--editor's choice" edition. (Thanks to the New England Independent Booksellers Association for the information.)

Concerning Eight Cousins, headed by Carol Chittenden, Yankee wrote: "This delightful shop has been nurturing new generations of readers--and book lovers--for almost 30 years. It's always heartening to find as many kids as adults perusing the 12,000 or so titles on the database."

And Hickory Stick Books, owned by Fran Keilty, was lauded this way: "Once host to William Styron and Arthur Miller, this well-loved shop welcomes local authors and illustrators, but it's also stocked with titles from around the world. Like local? Check out the handcrafts from around the region, including yarn from the owner's sheep."

Flash Gordon, Alex Raymond's "iconic blond-haired, Yale-educated, polo-playing hero, began his comic-strip adventures on the pages of newspapers" more than 80 years ago, USA Today reported, adding that Andre Peltier, a lecturer at Eastern Michigan University and part-time bookseller at Nicola's Books, Ann Arbor, Mich., "has made Flash a key component of his science-fiction literature course."

"We might not be able to have superheroes without characters like him," said Peltier. "We probably wouldn't have the space opera in film the way we do today. We can see the influence in a lot of Vonnegut and Arthur C. Clarke--maybe even a little in Asimov. It's in everything.... Luke [Skywalker], the out-of-place guy who has to go out and save everybody, is not at all unlike Flash Gordon, who stumbles into a spaceship just by chance."

Christina Pecorale has been promoted to senior director, children's sales, at Simon & Schuster. She has been with S&S since 2008, responsible for the company's children's business at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Ingram and Baker & Taylor. She will now also be responsible for S&S's independent retail and all educational wholesale accounts.

Two from Running Press and Running Press Kids, respectively, published this week:

How I Got Skinny, Famous, and Fell Madly in Love by Ken Baker, the E! News correspondent

The Battle of Darcy Lane by Tara Altebrando

Tomorrow on the View: B.J. Novak, author of One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories (Knopf, $24.95, 9780385351836).

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Tomorrow night on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher: Annabelle Gurwitch, author of I See You Made an Effort: Compliments, Indignities, and Survival Stories from the Edge of 50 (Blue Rider, $25.95, 9780399166181).

HBO will co-produce the BBC's miniseries adaptation of J.K. Rowling's novel The Casual Vacancy. Deadline.com reported that the three-hour miniseries, written by Sarah Phelps (EastEnders), produced by Ruth Kenley-Letts (The Hour) and directed by Jonny Campbell (In the Flesh), will begin production this summer in South West England. Bronte Film and Television, the independent production company run by Rowling and Neil Blair, is producing the three-part series. Executive producers are Blair, Paul Trijbits (Saving Mr. Banks) and Rick Senat.

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A new trailer has been released for Showtime's Penny Dreadful, a new horror series featuring "some of literature's most famously terrifying characters, including Dr. Frankenstein and his creature, Dorian Gray and iconic figures from the novel Dracula," Entertainment Tonight reported. Eva Green, Josh Hartnett and Timothy Dalton star.

In the trailer, "the show's leads attempt to persuade--or reassure--viewers that their dark tendencies are simply human nature. Or are we all just monsters masquerading as men? The drama, set in Victorian London, does intertwine the origin stories of various classic horror characters, after all," ET wrote.

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 this weekend from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's website.

Saturday, April 26
12 p.m. Coverage from the 2014 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which occurred April 12 and 13 on the campus of USC. (Re-airs Sunday at 12 a.m.)

5:15 p.m. Ben Tarnoff, author of The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature (Penguin Press, $27.95, 9781594204739), at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco (Re-airs Sunday at 11 p.m.)

7 p.m. Michele Gillespie, author of Katharine and R. J. Reynolds: Partners of Fortune in the Making of the New South (University of Georgia Press, $32.95, 9780820332260). (Re-airs Sunday at 10:30 a.m.)

7:45 p.m. Max Brooks, author of The Harlem Hellfighters (Broadway, $16.95, 9780307464972).

8:45 p.m. Michael Malice, author of Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il (CreateSpace, $20, 9781495283253) at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in New York City.

10 p.m. Patrick Tucker, author of The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move? (Current, $27.95, 9781591845867). (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m., Monday at 12 a.m. and 4 a.m.)

11 p.m. Richard Viguerie, author of Takeover: The 100-Year War for the Soul of the GOP and How Conservatives Can Finally Win It (WND Books, $27.95, 9781936488544). (Re-airs Sunday at 4 p.m.)


Sunday, April 27
5:30 a.m. William Easterly, author of The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor (Basic, $29.99, 9780465031252). (Re-airs Sunday at 7:30 p.m.)

1 p.m. Continuing coverage of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. (Re-airs Monday at 1 a.m.)

4:45 p.m. Dipali Mukhopadhyay, author of Warlords, Strongman Governors, and the State in Afghanistan (Cambridge University Press, $99, 9781107023925).

10 p.m. Carlotta Gall, author of The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $28, 9780544046696) and Willem Marx, co-author of Balochistan: At a Crossroads (Niyogi Books, $95, 9789381523858).

Richard Ford has won the 2014 Blue Metropolis International Literary Grand Prix, the Canadian award that recognizes "a lifetime of literary achievement by an internationally acclaimed writer." Ford receives the $10,000 award on May 3 at the Grande Bibliotheque in Montreal. His most recent work was the novel Canada.

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This year's finalists for the £10,000 (US$16,775) Caine Prize for African Writing--sometimes referred to as the "African Booker"--were announced Tuesday by Nobel Prize winner and Patron of the Caine Prize Professor Wole Soyinka, as part of the opening ceremonies for the UNESCO World Book Capital 2014 celebration in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The winner will be named July 14 in Oxford. The Caine Prize shortlisted stories are:

"Phosphorescence" by Diane Awerbuck (South Africa)
"Chicken" by Efemia Chela (Ghana/Zambia)
"The Intervention" by Tendai Huchu (Zimbabwe)
"The Gorilla's Apprentice" by Billy Kahora (Kenya)
"My Father's Head" by Okwiri Oduor (Kenya)

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Finalists have been selected for the 2014 ITW Thriller Awards. Winners will be announced at International Thriller Writers' ThrillerFest X on July 12 in New York City.

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The finalists for the Orion Book Award, honoring "books that deepen the reader's connection to the natural world through fresh ideas and excellence in writing" and sponsored by Orion magazine, are:

Fiction
All the Land to Hold Us by Rick Bass (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Archipelago by Monique Roffey (Penguin)
The Last Animal by Abby Geni (Counterpoint)
MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood (Nan A. Talese)

Nonfiction
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions)
Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? by Alan Weisman (Little, Brown)
Sightlines: A Conversation with the Natural World by Kathleen Jamie (The Experiment)
The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild by Lyanda Lynn Haupt (Little, Brown)

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, April 29:

Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Charles Marsh (Knopf, $35, 9780307269812) is the biography of a German theologian who defied the Nazis.

Natchez Burning: A Novel by Greg Iles (Morrow, $27.99, 9780062311078) begins a trilogy starring Southern lawyer Penn Cage.

Marc Forgione: Recipes and Stories from the Acclaimed Chef and Restaurant by Marc Forgione and Olga Massov (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $40, 9781118302781) is cookbook from a Food Network Iron Chef competitor.


Now in paperback:

Guinness World Records 2014, edited by Craig Glenday (Bantam, $7.99, 9780553390551).

Good Advice from Bad People: Selected Wisdom from Murderers, Stock Swindlers, and Lance Armstrong by Zac Bissonnette (Portfolio, $15, 9781591846895).

In Joshua Max Feldman's The Book of Jonah and Michael Cunningham's The Snow Queen, 2014 already has produced two excellent novels that wrestle with the issue of religious belief. To that number add Joshua Ferris's To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, a wry, intelligent novel that adroitly navigates the borderland between the demands of faith and the persistence of doubt.

A Park Avenue dentist's office might seem an unlikely setting for the consideration of such a weighty subject, but that's where Paul O'Rourke practices his profession, cynical about nearly everything save his beloved Boston Red Sox. One day Paul finds his office website appropriated by someone posting biblical-sounding messages. To his dismay, he soon becomes an unwilling presence in the online world, his name attached to posts and tweets that take on an increasingly disturbing, even vaguely anti-Semitic, tone. Paul's distaste for our absorption in social media and for electronic devices like our smartphones--what he calls his "me-machine"--only deepens his distress.

"Imagine a people so wretched that they envy the history of the Jews," Paul reads in one of his correspondent's tweets. The members of the group who've reached out to him consider themselves descendants of the Amalekites, the hated tribe whose extermination God decrees in the Book of Samuel. Paul is an atheist, but did not become one "so that I could stand above believers and shout my enlightenment down at them." He feels less the lack of God than he does the "loss of a vital human vocabulary." It's that absence that motivated him to consider becoming a "practicing atheistic Jew" when he dated Connie Plotz, no longer his lover but still his exasperated receptionist. Paul eventually learns the tragic story of the religious seeker whose research fuels the activities of the group he laments has "hijacked my life" and he comes to understand their effort is less about preserving some tiny cult than it is in defining the dimensions of religious practice amid skepticism.

In seizing upon both the transitory oddities of contemporary life and our enduring search for meaning, Joshua Ferris has created a winning modern parable. This sophisticated story marks a welcome return to the spirit of his first novel, Then We Came to the End, after the somber The Unnamed. He's a gifted satirist with a tender heart, and if he continues to find targets as worthy as the ones he skewers here, his work should amuse and enlighten us for many years to come. --Harvey Freedenberg

Shelf Talker: Joshua Ferris's third novel is a smart, contemporary satire on one skeptic's search for the roots of religious belief.

The bestselling self-published books last week as compiled by IndieReader.com:

1. The Fixed Trilogy by Laurelin Paige
2. The Will by Kristen Ashley
3. Reasonable Doubt by Whitney Gracia Williams
4. Mud Vein by Tarryn Fisher
5. Ask More, Get More by Michael Alden
6. Agnes Barton Senior Sleuth Mystery Box Set by Madison Johns
7. 10-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse by J.J. Smith
8. Dangerous Dozen: 12 Sexy Heroes to Die for by Various
9. Dare to Desire by Carly Phillips
10. Saltwater Kisses: A Billionaire's Love Story by Krista Lakes

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]