Do you remember dressing up as a Character from a book in primary school ? Well this was for world book day. From Pride and Prejudice to The Lord of the Flies, many people around the world use reading as a comfort.This year world book day was celebrated on the 3rd of March by 100 different countries across the world. 

 

World book day started quite recently in 1997 in England and Ireland and was started to overall prompt young people to discover the pleasure of reading, as well as to celebrate authors and their work. 

 

Waterstones is a very popular book shop with many shops scattered over england however Waterstones in piccadilly  is the biggest bookshop in london at a staggering 6 floors, for world book day waterstones said “Passionately promoting the joy of reading for a quarter of a century, World Book Day is celebrating its 25th birthday this year with the message ‘You Are a Reader’. No matter what your level, ability or topic of interest might be, there is a perfect book for everyone and we are bursting with ideas and inspiration for finding stories that families can share and enjoy together. As World Book Day vouchers cannot be used online, we will not be stocking the official World Book Day books this year – but we have put together a selection of brilliant reads to kindle the magic of reading.”

 

One app has increased the popularity of reading significantly, this is TikTok. This platform has created the hashtag “booktok” which overall encourages people to read and share reviews and any type of literature. Some waterstones offer a section where it offers the most popular Booktok books, examples of these would be : It Ends with Us, Girl in pieces or the Shatter me series. 

 

Some of my peers that often engage in reading as a hobby stated their favourite books this month and why :

Maleehah laher : “Conversation with Friends by Sally Rooney 

Why? because it is the only book where I wholly identify with the main character. As I was reading it it felt as though the author had gone inside my head and put all my inner thoughts onto paper.”

Niam Patel :”The Unhoneymooners this book  was amazing as it was very gripping and had many funny and cute moments.”

 

Overall it is clear that reading can be both a shared and personal experience and lets its readers enter a different reality, even if it is for a couple of minutes. Personally, my goal this year is to read at least 50 books and hopefully I will enjoy everyone. 

 

Websites used :

World Book Day Our History

World Book Day (UK and Ireland) - Wikipedia

Waterstones - Wikipedia