“Maybe they were right to put love in the books. Perhaps because he could live nowhere else” (William Faulkner, 1897-1962). The love of reading moves the steps and the hands to retrieve the books from the library, they open them and “taste” what smells of musk from the place where the pages are bound. The scent of paper and magic at the same time, the passion for reading is baptized as a gift and one of the questions raised is whether the love of reading can be taught.
Food and at the same time water for the thought and the soul is reading, through which the thought of the author whom the readership studies is kept alive. The very person who writes is a book, just as each individual reader (metaphorically) is a book, and each person is a book; different, with a soft or thick cover, soft, rough or pointed pages, easy or difficult to read.
The process converges to be common, it is solitary: of writing but also of reading. The person who creates dialogues with himself and writes – sometimes consciously, sometimes impulsively – the audience is in a process of internal search while and after they finish reading. As a mirror the words that jump out of the pages – words or phrases “hit” us in the face as if they were written for us. Sometimes they become a protective cover, sometimes they form a somewhat informal path that determines our decisions.
They become a reminder of those who deserve our care, love and time, those who in one word we would call elementary, of those necessary for our healthy course in our limited existence. The necessary ones who – among other things – will give us spirituality, will help our soul to climb a step higher. They will make her wonder and seek, like an idle worker who thirsts for learning while staying young. And this process will be silent, a silent “rebellion”.
Flipping through the pages of a book, we can feel the creator’s care for – each time – his “spiritual child” (inv. the book). As well as the care of those who contributed to its publication and dissemination, apart from the creator-author: translators, illustrators, graphic designers, printers, publishers, booksellers.
Those who, together with the author, contribute to the promotion of bibliophilia, reading and the dissemination of the book, and remind that “reading is another way of being somewhere(José Saramago, Portuguese writer, 1922-2010, Nobel Prize 1998).
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The above are just some of what sprung from our own pen about the magic, redemption and power of the book. They are written on the occasion of World Book Day which has been established by UNESCO to be celebrated on April 23day on which the books have their due date.
The day was chosen and is dedicated to two great creators of world literature who “departed” on the same day (April 23, 1616): the William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes. Starting from 2016, the Greek Book Association also established April 23 as Book Day in Greece, with the central message “read & change».
On this day, the Book Walk is organized throughout Greece in public and municipal libraries, bookshops and publishing houses, with the aim of creating new and mobilizing old readers. So, all of them will be taken to bookstores and libraries – where, after all, the book is kept and “breathes”.
Each time the celebration takes place with the ambition to start new actions and opportunities to highlight reading, to promote the necessary cause of education and culture, which are being challenged in our days.
