It all started during a night out with my friend Alfie. We got into a passionate conversation about how much we hate the free newspapers – the way they sort of chuck them at you and you don’t really want them, but you end up taking them anyway. And then instead of reading a book, every day you’re reading about celebrities you never cared about in the first place. You end up on a conveyor belt of information on these people’s lives.
So that night we got on the computer and wrote a rant on Facebook – we started a group and called it “Choose What You Read”. The next day we woke up with sore heads and thought: “Oh, no, we started a Facebook group. Why did we do that?” But within a week, 150 people had joined and we realised other people feel the same way. We decided we didn’t just want to be angry, so we came up with this idea: instead of attacking the free papers, we would offer an alternative. For a month we asked everyone we knew to donate books, and at the beginning of February we launched our first hand-out for Choose What You Read.
We stick a purple logo on the books’ jackets, and a sticker inside where the donor and everyone who reads it can write their name. We ask people to return the books after they have finished with them, either at a hand-out or to a drop-box at the Curzon cinema in Soho. We want this to be a circulation, not just consumption.
Every first Monday of the month we carry our book crates to tube stations at Westminster, Liverpool Street, Euston, Paddington and Waterloo. We set up next to the London Lite people and shout: “Free books!” That gets heads turning. Some people will just grab a book out of the box, others will rummage through looking for something they really want. Sometimes people will get into an argument with us; they say: “Well, I like reading the free papers.” Fine by me, as long as you’re making a choice.
It’s important to be very visible, to make a statement: yes, you can act on things that bother you. At the same time, we don’t want to be taken for a bunch of lunatics – that’s why we’ve put so much effort into creating a good, professional-brand look.
I used to read the free papers myself until I got completely sick of them. They’re just designed to depress, scare and sedate you. Page after page, there’s nothing but paedophiles, stabbings, murders and drunk celebrities. People end up believing that every 16-year-old in a hoodie is going to stab them. After a while you begin to feel that the world is a terrible place and the best thing to do is buy a ready meal, stay at home with a bottle of wine and live vicariously through celebrities. These papers aren’t simply annoying, they’re quite harmful.
This isn’t about being highbrow. We’re not saying we want everyone to read Kafka on the train. If you want to read a tabloid, go for it – but choose one and buy it. Don’t just take whatever is pushed at you.
It’s quite sad to get on the tube and see the whole carriage reading the same paper. I remember when the novel White Teeth by Zadie Smith came out – everyone was reading that. You could pretty much read the whole book over a few weeks just by looking over somebody’s shoulder. That hasn’t happened for a long time. You never see everyone reading the new Booker winner, because they’re all reading Metro. We’re missing out on so much.
Starting Choose What You Read has changed my whole outlook. I’ve realised it’s possible to get up and do something about things that bother you. After the first hand-out, we were practically high on feeling we’d changed the world. But even though we might not have done that, if we’ve just got 20 people to change their minds about taking the free papers, that’s already a great thing to have done.
