After the multitude of holidays commemorated over the past few days, here comes another day jam-packed with reasons to celebrate. Today, April 23, marks World Book and Copyright Day, inaugurated by UNESCO in 1995 to promote reading, publishing, and copyright awareness. Today is also Saint George's Day, a holiday feted in Catalonia, Spain, by sweethearts exchanging books with one another, and International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, a holiday created by science fiction and fantasy writer Jo Walton to encourage her fellow authors to post "professional quality" works for free on the internet. The abundance of literary happenings in one single day leads me to ask: Which science fiction/fantasy books would you offer to your sweetheart (platonic or romantic) to promote their reading and intellectual development? (Essentially, which titles do you think accord with the themes of today's three holidays?) My suggestions, in no particular order:

Anything by Ursula Le Guin

Nightfall and Other Stories by Isaac Asimov

Ubik by Philip K. Dick

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (Actually, speaking of Bradbury, here is a quotation from him on his relationship with libraries: "Libraries raised me. I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.")