Waterstones wants you to buy a book for Syria

Waterstones has teamed up with Oxfam to raise money for the charity’s Syria Crisis Appeal, donating 100% of the full retail price on a host of bestselling titles.

The ‘Buy Books for Syria’ campaign sees the books donated by their publishers, and encompasses the authors:

Philip Pullman, Hilary Mantel, David Walliams, Neil Gaiman, David Nicholls, Marian Keyes, Victoria Hislop, Ali Smith, Robert Harris, Lee Child, Salman Rushdie, Caitlin Moran, Julia Donaldson and Jacqueline Wilson.

“This is the biggest refugee crisis in history - 60m people, world-wide, are displaced, half of them children - threatening both the stability of the Middle East and Europe, and our own sense of compassion, and the value we put on human life,” commented Caitlin Moran.

“Whilst the governments of this world still fail to come up with a solution to this problem, I am proud to do as millions of others have, and say ‘We see you, we hear you, we will not let you suffer this alone. We promise - help is coming’.”

Salman Rushdie added that he is “delighted to be a part of the British book world's effort,” while Philip Pullman said: “The cause is so obviously good that anything we can do is worth doing.”

The bookstore is hoping to raise £1 million with the initiative, and said that 'all funds raised will be ring-fenced by Oxfam for aid for Syrian refugees and displaced people in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey as well as European points of entry in Macedonia, and Greece.’

Buy Books for Syria kicks off on 1 October.