Stories continue to roll in from the millions of women who participated in demonstrations around the world on Saturday, but did you know there was a book giveaway over the weekend as well? Atria Books gave away 35,000 books by people of color and others in honor of the Women's March on Washington, including a memoir by Women's March speaker Janet Mock. The giveaway might be over now, but Atria Books deserves all the accolades for letting people download great books by women of color for free.
Over the weekend, Atria Books allowed users to download one of seven selected books from its collection, with a 5,000-download limit placed on each title. The website crashed on Friday, Jan. 20, due to high traffic, and the publisher extended its giveaway to make sure everyone — up to 35,000 people — had the chance to download a fantastic book. The titles on offer were:
- The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae
- Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
- The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
- The Girl Who Escaped ISIS by Farida Khalaf
- Things I Should Have Told My Daughter by Pearl Cleage
- Niña Alemana, the Spanish-language edition of The German Girl, by Armando Lucas Correa
- Redefining Realness by Janet Mock
Atria Books is part of the Atria Publishing Group, and is a division of Simon & Schuster: the Big Five publisher responsible for white nationalist Milo Yiannopoulos' book deal. Clearly, Simon & Schuster's de facto support of Yiannopoulos has no bearing on the value of Atria Books, their authors, or this giveaway. However, as many people have elected — for better or worse — to boycott Simon & Schuster as a result of the controversy, it would be disingenuous to not mention the connection.
