After posting my comments on Sant Jordi, I thought to check on a few details that I decided not to include. This led me to a Wikpedia article, which informed me that some of my ideas were not quite accurate. For instance :-

The connection between 23 April and books was first made in 1923 by booksellers in Spain as a way to honour the author Miguel de Cervantes who died on that day. This became a part of the celebrations of the Saint George's Day (also 23 April) in Catalonia, where it has been traditional since the medieval era for men to give roses to their lovers and since 1925 for the woman to give a book in exchange. Half the yearly sales of books in Catalonia are at this time with over 400,000 sold and exchanged for over 4 million roses.

I had doubted that the Sant Jordi tradition was that old – many 'ancient' Catalan traditions actually date back to the resurgence of Catalan nationalism in the mid 19th century – but hadn't imagined the combination of the medieval rose and the modern book. More basically, my impression of the tradition was that you gave both books and roses, without assuming that men only appreciate books and women only appreciate roses. It seems that originally the gender stereotypes applied – but my experience today is that you tend to give both. Perhaps my view is affected by the circles in which I move? But here's another shock :-

Although 23 April is often stated as the anniversary of the deaths of both Shakespeare and Cervantes, this is not strictly correct. Cervantes died on 23 April according the Gregorian calendar; however, at this time England still used the Julian calendar. Whilst Shakespeare died on 23 April by the Julian calendar in use in his own country at the time, actually he died ten days after Cervantes, because of the discrepancy between the two date systems. The apparent correspondence of the two dates was a fortunate coincidence for UNESCO.

Oh dear! I've always loved the romantic idea of two great geniuses dying on the same day … and probably in complete ignorance of each other. So I think I will continue with the pleasing myth of insisting that the two died on April 23rd 1616 - and ignore the tedious historical detail of there being two April 23rds. But what's this about UNESCO ?

In 1995, UNESCO decided that the World Book and Copyright Day would be celebrated on this date because of the Catalonian festival and because the date is also the anniversary of the birth and death of William Shakespeare, the death of Miguel de Cervantes, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Josep Pla, the birth of Maurice Druon, Vladimir Nabokov, Manuel Mejía Vallejo and Halldór Laxness.

I'm embarrassed that I didn't even know that there was a World Book and Copyright Day! April 23^rd is significant in England because it is St George's Day (national pride), and because it is the anniversary of Shakespeare's death (more national pride); and it's big here in Catalonia because it's … well … Sant Jordi, a great Catalan tradition (national pride again). In neither case would anyone pay much attention to some fancy add-on idea dreamed up by foreigners. Which is a pity, since the idea of a global celebration of the wonders of reading seems like an excellent project. Perhaps UNESCO needs to review how it sells the whole concept – what about 'World eBook and Download Day' ?