Today is both St. George's Day and the birth and death day of Shakespeare, and tonight is World Book Night in the UK, Ireland, Germany & the USA. In the UK alone, 20,000 passionate readers will each gift 24 copies of one of their favourite books to encourage those who don't regularly read to fall in love with reading. You can borrow some of the shortlisted titles from the Hub e.g.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak;
The Road by Cormac McCarthy;
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro;
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen.
Profile Books will launch "a literary, interactive book app" this week for £2.99. Dale Townshend, a lecturer in Gothic and Romantic literature at the University of Stirling, said the app offered "a thoroughly literary experience" in the spirit of Shelley's original. "I really like it," he said. "It's done with enormous sensitivity to Shelley's narrative ... There's enormous intelligence behind the reworking." Dr Townshend was particularly impressed by a "nuanced take on monstrosity" without "cheap thrills of gore". In the second section, the reader becomes the creature. "You live and experience ... a creature called monstrous by those who don't understand him. That I found extremely poignant."
