Poetry and Booker winner for World Book Night 2015

Poetry, Young Adult titles and a Booker Prize winning author feature on the list of books to be given away during World Book Night 2015.

Special editions of the 20 titles will all be given away by thousands of volunteers, who can now begin applying to take part in the annual event on 23rd April next year.

For the first time since World Book Night's first year in 2011, poetry features on the list of chosen titles, with Essential Poetry from the Staying Alive Trilogy, edited by Neil Astley (Bloodaxe). The choice was supported financially by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and the Forward Arts Foundation.

The list also features Booker Prize winner Roddy Doyle with Dead Man Talking (Vintage), written as a Quick Read title for the 2015 scheme launching next February. The Booker Prize Foundation is financially supporting the title as it backs World Book Night for the first time.

Doyle's book is joined by fellow Quick Read titles Chickenfeed by Minette Walters (Pan Macmillan), and Street Cat Bob by James Bowen (Hodder).

Meanwhile Skellig by David Almond (Hachette Children's) and My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher (Orion/Hachette Children's) will appeal to younger readers, and crime is well represented by titles such as M C Beaton's Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death (Constable & Robinson) and Lynda La Plante's Prime Suspect (Simon and Schuster).

New writing comes from debut authors Mary Gibson with Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts (Head of Zeus), Andy Weir's The Martian (Ebury) and Swedish husband and wife duo Cilla and Rolf Börjlind's Spring Tide (Hesperus).

Rachel Joyce's bestselling The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Transworld) was chosen for the list from a selection of books chosen by World Book Night volunteers in 2014 as the books they would most like to give away.

2015 will be the second time World Book Night is being run by literacy charity The Reading Agency, while the BBC continues as official media partner. Reading Agency c.e.o. Sue Wilkinson said: "We are thrilled to announce this varied and exciting list of 20 books for World Book Night 2015. I’m personally delighted as lots of my old favourites are here, including Skellig, and I’m over the moon that we have a poetry title on the list this year. We are now calling for a huge team of volunteer givers who will feel inspired to go out into the community on World Book Night and share their love of reading. Through this remarkable mass celebration of reading on 23rd April, we hope that people who receive a World Book Night book will begin their reading journey as we seek to create a reading nation."

Volunteers can now sign up to take part as givers, with applications closing on 30th January 2015. Successful applicants will be informed by 27th February. On 23rd April, UNESCO International Day of the Book, they will be able to collect their chosen title from bookshops and libraries around the UK, supplied by delivery partner Yodel. People who are not able to become volunteers are encouraged to give books from their own shelves, to spread reading to the 35% of the population who do not read for pleasure.

Earlier this year, it was announced that World Book Night in the US would be coming to an end, while Germany's second World Book Night in 2013 was also shelved.

The full list of titles is:

1. After the Fall by Charity Norman (Allen and Unwin)
2. Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death by M. C. Beaton (Constable, Little, Brown)
3. Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb (HarperCollins)
4. Chickenfeed by Minette Walters (Quick Read) (Pan Macmillan)
5. Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts by Mary Gibson (Head of Zeus)
6. Dead Man Talking by Roddy Doyle (Quick Read) (Vintage, Penguin Random House)
7. Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden (Pan Macmillan)
8. Essential Poems from the Staying Alive Trilogy, Neil Astley (ed.) (Bloodaxe)
9. Honour by Elif Shafak (Penguin General, Penguin Random House)
10. My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher (Orion / Hachette Children’s)
11. Prime Suspect by Lynda La Plante (Simon & Schuster)
12. Queen’s Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle (Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House)
13. Skellig by David Almond (Hachette Children’s)
14. Spring Tide by Cilla and Rolf Börjlind (Hesperus)
15. Street Cat Bob by James Bowen(Quick Read) (Hodder)
16. The Martian by Andy Weir (Ebury, Penguin Random House)
17. The Moaning of Life by Karl Pilkington (Canongate)
18. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (Transworld, Penguin Random House)
19. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (Two Roads, John Murray)
20. When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman (Headline)