Maybe I should stop watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, and read more, writes GRAHAM CARTER.

Last Thursday was World Book Day, but I just didn’t get it. You see, it was only World Book Day in Britain and Ireland. The rest of the world isn’t going to celebrate it until April 23.

To me this can only mean one of two things.

It could be that the space/time continuum has been upset, as it often was when Captain Picard was at the helm of the Enterprise, and this has caused the UK to be out of step with the rest of the planet to the tune of about seven weeks.

In which case: Christmas this year is going to fall on Bonfire Night.

Or – more likely – ‘World Book Day’ is a terrible misnomer that should be renamed British Isles Book Day.

I would have thought the whole idea of something called World Book Day would be for people all over the world to celebrate the joy of reading books together, on a single given day.

This isn’t the only disappointing thing about it.

Another shame is how it is promoted and interpreted as something almost exclusively for kids, when old duffers like me, for instance, would also benefit from getting their noses into a good book more often. For that reason it seems like a bit of a missed opportunity.

It’s also a shame that World Book Day mostly seems to focus on fiction, encouraging the reading of stories when there are millions of us (including kids) who don’t necessarily want to read made-up stuff, but do read lots of non-fiction.

I do accept, however, that while thousands of kids went to school in Harry Potter or Big Friendly Giant costumes, it wouldn’t work quite as well if they dressed up as Bill Bryson or Richard Dawkins.

This assumption, that people mostly read fiction, isn’t restricted to World Book Day. I sometimes catch A Good Read on Radio 4, which is interesting enough, but they hardly ever pick a non-fiction book to read.

The same goes for reading groups, which I have always had a bit of a yearning to join, but I know I wouldn’t really be welcome because when it came to my choice of a book it would be The History of Herring Fishing on the East Coast of England and Scotland, which is never going to be read as avidly as well as 50 Shades of Grey.

One thing I do know: I really should read more books.

It occurred to me last Thursday that I have written more books in the last couple of years than I have read.

That isn’t as impressive as it may sound as I have only co-written one (non-fiction, naturally) so I have technically written half a book.

But in the same period I haven’t read a whole book from cover to cover, although I have read a lot of chapters and chunks of books, which adds up to a lot.

It’s ironic that books seem as popular as ever at a time libraries seem to be going out of fashion quicker than flared trousers.

In a country now seemingly obsessed with dismantling, in equal measure, essential and life-enhancing services, it is a shame that the mad axemen should be so intent on closing libraries, which have so much more to offer than merely the chance to read stories.

But let’s end on a positive note, and a theme I will be taking up next week, guaranteed to warm the cockles of any literary heart, young or old, which is: Ladybird books.

  • See our World Book Day picture galleries here and here