Twenty lucky people in the Cultural District in Pittsburgh received free books from the HearYourselfThink Project Wednesday for World Book Night.
Across the country, 25,000 volunteers handed out half a million books to encourage reading.
“We can open folks’ eyes to the power and joy of reading, and we’re talking to folks in the street asking them ‘have you read a good book lately’ and starting the conversation. It’s really great to be out here getting books into folks’ hands,” said director of HearYourselfThink, Dave Ninehouser.
In Katz Plaza, HearYourselfThink was handing out Garrison Keillor’s "Pontoon," about life and death in a small town.
“We want folks having those conversations at the laundromat, at work, at home, at school, about what matters, about civic values, coming together and not just being victims of media sources that don’t really have our best interests in mind,” said Ninehouser.
Ninehouser says that the HearYourselfThink Project focuses on allowing yourself to think while reading, but also tuning out other media by concentrating on the page, rather than the screen.
Authors collected no royalties and publishers paid the cost to have the books printed.
