Dear Reader

Welcome to BookCrossing and thanks for being a part of World Book Night 2011, the largest book giveaway in history. 1,000,000 specially printed copies of 25 different books changed hands on March 5th 2011 and began their journey from reader to reader. This book is one of them. World Book Night has joined with BookCrossing to help track these books as they travel. You can be a part of that journey by making a comment in the book's journal here on BookCrossing. Your journal entry can say how you got the book, what you thought of it, your plans for it or whatever else you might like to add.

On BookCrossing you may choose to remain anonymous or join (it's free). If you join, you’ll be alerted by e-mail each time someone makes another journal entry for this specific copy of this book (other copies of the book are travelling with their own ID number. Every copy of every book has a unique ID). It’s all confidential (you’re known only by your screen name and no one is ever given your e-mail address) and spam-free.

Thanks in advance for being part of World Book Night and BookCrossing. And happy reading and sharing.

This book is being released via BookCrossing on 5 March 2011 as part of the inaugural World Book Night. With the full support of the Publishers Association, the Booksellers Association, the Independent Publishers Guild, the Reading Agency with libraries, World Book Day and the BBC, one million books will be given away by an army of passionate readers to members of the public across the UK and Ireland.

Read and release!

Stuart is written with honesty, humour, and frustration. Alexander's genuine affection for Stuart (and his frustration with him) made this story stay with me for a long time.

The interaction between two people living in the same society but with different experiences (middle class academic vs homeless drug addict) was an interesting warts and all look at modern UK.

Writing the book backwards let the story be read with hope developing as Stuart becomes a happy child. And then the frustration of what might have been continued in my mind after the book was finished.

This book is being released as part of World Book Night when 1,000,000 books are being given away. This book's journey can be followed via bookcrossing. I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I did.

If you aren't familiar with Bookcrossing, take a few minutes to check out this very cool site. Bookcrossers LOVE books, and more than anything, they love to read books and then set them free for other people to find and enjoy. I would love it if you would leave a journal entry -- you can say where you found the book or how you liked it when you read it.

My boyfriend spent St. Patrick's Day in Dublin and I gave him three books for the OBCZ in The Long Stone Pub. He picked this book for me from those he has found there and now it is safe in Leipzig, Germany and waiting to be read.

When I finished reading the book, I had to take a deep breath.
Stuart's life discribed backwards was really fascinating to read, because it wasn't like a usual biography. It makes the reader thinking about what a life on the street means to the homeless and how it happens that someone decides to live on the street.
It is sad, that the book doesn't have a different ending.

The book is travelling via a swap-bot swap to the next reader. Enjoy the book!