After an American tourist got locked in to one of their bookshops, Waterstones are inviting volunteers for a sleepover. Here are ten short books you could read in an evening – but what would you do if you could spend the night in a bookshop? Let us know in the comments below

Wandering around bookshops has its dangers. One minute you’re browsing; the next thing you know, you’re locked in for the night. That’s the situation a Texan tourist, David Willis, found himself in last week, in a London Waterstones. He took it in good humour, at least, sending this out on Instagram:

Twitter had fun with it, of course. By the next afternoon, he had been retweeted over 12,000 times:

David Willis (@DWill_) Hi @Waterstones I've been locked inside of your Trafalgar Square bookstore for 2 hours now. Please let me out.

The friend he first contacted shared their WhatsApp exchange with the world:

Amy Mac (@Ames_Mac) How it all began: The initial panic. @Waterstones @DWill_ #freethewaterstones1 #waterstonestexan pic.twitter.com/UTzV9Y5HRM

David Willis (@DWill_) I'm free

Now Waterstones are offering a sleepover to ten guests and their partners this Friday (24 October) in their flagship London Piccadilly store – perhaps in response to all the bookworms tweeting “OMG I would kill to be locked up in a bookstore”. They have teamed up with travel website Airbnb, which did something similar with an Ikea store in Australia earlier this year. Here’s how to enter, if you want to pitch your airbed in the “Children’s and history” section, and enjoy sleeping tips from sleep expert Richard Wiseman, as well as other activities. If you don’t make it, you can follow the action on Friday with the hashtag #WaterstonesSleepover.

Ten books you could read in an evening



In the meantime, what would you pick off the shelves if you could spend a night surrounded by literary greats in Europe’s largest bookshop, with over 8.5 miles of books? Here are 10 books you could read in an evening (the number of pages varies depending on the edition):

What would you do or read? Please add your own suggestions in the comment thread below.

