On the 23rd April 2012, Shakespeare Day, the organisers of World Book Night, for the second year running, gave away one million books across Britain and Ireland. They marked this mass celebration of the power and potential of reading with a one-off event in London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank Centre, where authors, actors and comediens including Martina Cole, Lemn Sissay, Ian M. Banks, Elif Shafak, Jon Ronson, Andrea Levy, Mark Billingham, Neil Gaiman, Hardeep Singh Kholi, Owen Teale and Colin Salmon all gathered to perform for a crowd of book lovers.