Famous Authors Are Donating Thousands of Books to Help Support Oxfam

Margaret Atwood, Paula Hawkins, Neil Gaiman and Robert Webb are among a plethora of authors who will be donating thousands of books to the Oxfam today in an effort to raise money and support the charity. Writer Eric Ngalle Charles is launching the #BooksChangeLives campaign today (May 30) at the Hay Festival. The campaign encourages readers to share books that changed their lives on social media and donate unwanted books to their local Oxfam shops.

Several famed authors have been revealing titles which changed their lives and impacted them as a writer. Dolly Alderton, author of Everything I Know About Love, opted for The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Banks. “It taught me so much about men and women – about love and relationship dynamics and the myths we’re fed about romance,” she said.

Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with a Pearl Earring chose Restoration by Rose Tremain, Nick Hornby went with Anne Tyler’s Dinner at The Homesick Restaurant and Philippa Gregory chose Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own.

As The Book Seller reports, many big publishers are also taking part in the campaign and donating thousands of books to Oxfam, including the likes of Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette UK, Faber and Faber, Bloomsbury, Pavilion, Pan Macmillan and Profile Books, and authors Ruth Jones, Germaine Greer, Greg James Kate Garraway, Marcel Somerville, Jensen Button, Father of Daughters and Scummy Mummies.

Oxfam’s trading director, Andrew Horton, said that the charity is “so grateful” for the “overwhelming show of support by so many talented and generous people in the book world”.

“We estimate that the thousands of books donated to Oxfam by our friends in the publishing industry could raise over £25,000 from sales in Oxfam shops”, he said. “The authors have also donated thousands of books personally. Book donations are vitally important to Oxfam, because they raise millions of pounds for our work helping the world’s poorest people escape the daily grind of living with dirty water and hunger. These valuable book donations and the sales they generate, really will change the lives of people who desperately need help for good.”

Money raised from the campaign will go towards providing people in need with clean water, food and shelter for people living in refugee camps, sending girls to school, fighting for women to be paid a fair wage in decent working conditions, and helping men and women farmers acquire the skills and materials they need to feed their families and work their way out of poverty.

“Oxfam has many friends in the book world, who support Oxfam’s essential work in some of the most difficult environments on earth,” said Andrew Franklin, founder and managing director of Profile Books. “It is a noble organisation delivering life-saving aid like clean water to the world’s most profoundly disadvantaged people. That’s why Profile Books, along with other publishers, has donated thousands of books to Oxfam to sell in its shops and raise much needed cash. I’m glad we can demonstrate our support for Oxfam in such a practical way. And we will continue to do so as long as the need is there.”