Authors Turn Booksellers to Help Promote Oxfam Bookfest

Posted on July 6, 2009

Authors and celebrities have joined forces to help promote the first annual Oxfam Bookfest, a nationwide book festival in Great Britain. Celebrity authors are working in the Oxfam used bookshops across the country, happily helping customers find something good to read. The bookstores sell used books at a premium, which used to support the international aid organization Oxfam.

Authors and celebrities, from Philip Pullman to Jonathan Coe and Hanif Kureishi, have teamed up to launch the first annual Oxfam Bookfest, a nationwide book festival running from 4 to 18 July in hundreds of venues around the country to raise money for Oxfam. Kamila Shamsie, Esther Freud and Mark Haddon are also participating, volunteering in their local Oxfam stores to help launch the festival, while new poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy has written a poem celebrating the charity and its shops.
"It's absolutely terrific - the shop is heaving," said Trollope, taking a short break this morning. "I've been given the task of sorting the literature shelves - I'm quite tidy-minded. I'm allowed to do the pricing as well: nothing under £2, and above £10 has to be something like a signed John Le Carre first edition. I've been admiring Bill Nighy and Monica Ali behind the till - I'm rather hoping they don't ask me to do that."

Joanna Trollope wrote a short story for Ox-Tales, an anthology published in conjunction with the Oxfam Bookfest. She told The Guardian, "These bookshops turn over enough money each month for two million people to have clean drinking water. If you take 15 good quality books you don't want to Oxfam, they can either pay for a goat, or train a teacher in the third world."

Customers who head to their local Oxfam bookshop during Bookfest might find authors such as Esther Freud, Jonathan Coe, William Sutcliffe or Hanif Kureishi helping them find a good beach read and then ringing up their purchase.