Read, Drink and Be Merry!

I read got this off Sharon Bakar's blog today, and thought it was the most bizarre yet brilliant plan to get people to read EVER:


Blokes bribed with beer to read books

Organizers of New Zealand Book Month are offering free beer to try to entice blokes to read books. To promote reading as a "manly" activity, organizers have invited fathers and their sons to an evening of male bonding over sports, adventure and literature.


Beer + Books has to be one of the strangest combinations ever, yet I look back at all those times I've read books while having a beer in hand (usually at airports when I have nothing to do or in Amsterdam when it's raining outside), and I can see the appeal.

The problem is, when blokes get together for beer, reading is usually the LAST thing on their minds - especially when there's sports on the telly. And what are they gonna read anyway? Have any of you even tried reading say.. Lord of The Rings or Moby Dick while guzzling pints of beer?

Heck, the free beer alone is a recipe for disaster, and I reckon it won't be long into the event before people start using the books as coasters instead...

But then again, who cares? It's free beer! WHEE!