Culver City Friends of the Library and the Culver City Julian Dixon Library will be participating as a giving site for World Book Night on Tuesday, April 23.

On this date 25,000 volunteers from Berkeley to Boston and Sitka to Sarasota will give away half a million free books in more than 6,000 towns and cities across the country. Volunteer book lovers help promote reading by going out into their communities and sharing free copies of books they love.

The Culver City library will be holding a pre-World Book Night reception the week before April 23. On Saturday, April 20 the Friends are welcoming local givers in from 3 pm to 4:30 p.m. to pick up their books, meet other book lovers and share ideas about books and book giving.

Light refreshments will be served. Community members who would like to learn more about World Book Night, and who might be interested in participating next year are welcome to drop by.

Bestselling authors Ann Patchett and James Patterson are this year’s honorary chair-people.

Patterson said: “In my experience, when people like what they are doing, they do more of it. This is the genius of World Book Night — it gets people reading by connecting them with amazing, enjoyable books. I’m honored to be a part of it.”

“I’m very proud to be a part of World Book Night,” Patchett added. “As both a writer and a bookseller, I’m all in favor of getting books into the hands of people who might not otherwise have access to them.”

The books were chosen by an independent panel of booksellers and librarians through several rounds of voting. The printing of the free books was possible due to generosity of the authors, publishers, and book manufacturing companies.

Although it is too late to be a giver this year, those interested in participating in the future can sign up for the WBN mailing list for news and updates on World Book Night 2014.

For more information about World Book Night go to www.WorldBookNight.org or visit on Facebook and Twitter.

www.facebook.com/worldbooknightusa

twitter.com/wbnamerica