Hannah Beckerman Reveals Her Proudest Moment

[amazon_link id=”0718178149″ target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]I am delighted to be taking part in the book tour for ‘The Dead Wife’s Handbook’, Hannah Beckerman’s debut novel and one of the most eagerly anticipated books of 2014.

Today on Handwritten Girl, the theme is memories and before Hannah’s tells us what her proudest moment has been so far in life, I must reveal mine. So here goes:

I think that when I look back on my life and take the time to reflect, I would have to say that I think my proudest moment has come from the launch of Handwritten Girl. With the website, it has introduced me to so many inspirational people and it is so wonderful to be part of such a fun and creative community giving me the opportunity to read some of the most amazing books and meet some influential authors and people.

I love the fact that people come to me for book recommendations and when they tell you that I loved the book that you suggested, it makes the whole experience that bit more rewarding.

In recent times, a few of my quotes from reviews have appeared on the actual finished products and it is so thrilling to see my name on that book, especially if it was a book that I really enjoyed. The journey has been a joy and one that I hope will last for many years to come.

Hannah says –

I was working at the BBC and was responsible for coming up with ideas for Arts programmes. TV producers had been struggling for years to make interesting programmes about books so I was trying to figure out how to do a television series that would tap into the passion people have for books, a series that would make watching TV programmes about books as engaging as actually reading them. And that’s when I came up with the idea for The Big Read: a vote for the nation’s favourite novels. The project was six months in the planning followed by an entire year of book-related activity both on and off-screen, becoming the BBC’s biggest ever literature endeavour. I had the privilege of running the whole project, working with fantastic people at The Reading Agency, The National Literacy Trust and Booktrust to promote reading in schools and libraries across the country. I got to work with the country’s best publishers and bookshops on promoting the project in high streets around the UK. And the statistics at the end of the project – the number of teachers who’d used our teaching packs, numbers of libraries who’d run Big Read events, numbers of new book groups that had started up, the millions of people who’d voted for their favourite books – were enough to make any book-lover weep. I think I’d be hard-pushed to do anything again that has quite such impact and reach, but I’m very pleased – and very proud – that I got to do it once.

You can buy [amazon_link id=”0718178149″ target=”_blank” ]The Dead Wife’s Handbook from Amazon[/amazon_link] and is available to buy from good bookshops.