ALS Ice Bucket Challenge: Book World Update

Shelf Awareness

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has raised more than $70 million thus far and, as we noted last week, the book world has also fully embraced the viral momentum of charitable self-drenching. Here are just a few more bookish variations (among dozens) on an ice bucket challenge theme:

At Perseus Distribution, staff members have been challenging each other to take the ice bucket challenge and donate to ALS in honor of former colleague Sarah Coglianese, who was diagnosed with the disease about two years ago and chronicles her journey on her blog at Speed4Sarah to raise awareness about ALS.

John Grisham met Stephen King's challenge, and George R.R. Martin accepted the one issued to him by "Neil Gaiman, that bastard." Sandra Boynton imagined a Hippo Ice Bucket Challenge. Roddy Doyle opted for a classic dialogue between two lads sipping Guinness in a pub. And George Saunders shared an Ice Bucket Challenge story with a funny twist.

Baylor Bookstore, Waco, Tex., participated. You can even choose to follow a bookstore challenge through-line (an ALS Ice Bucket Challenge version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon). For example, you can go from the Strand Book Store, New York City, to Powell's Books, Portland, Ore., to Politics & Prose Bookstore, Washington, D.C., to Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe & Grill, Washington, D.C., to Harvard Bookstore, Cambridge, Mass., to Brazos Bookstore, Houston, Tex.--and beyond.