Article by Cosmina Bajan
Since 1995, under the patronage of UNESCO, we celebrate World’s Book Day on the 23rd of April. The tradition of this day is anyways older than 1995, the first connection between the 23rd of April and books was made in 1923 by a bookseller in Spain who celebrated the day in which the great writer Miguel Cervantes died. In order to celebrate this special international day, an NGO in Lefkada City organized a special event.
Importance of printed books in post-modern culture
The importance of the printed book in the European culture and civilization is without a doubt so visible and universally recognized that there’s no need for us to highlight it in this article. We want to concentrate on the present and on the importance of the book in our post-modern culture, a culture dominated by the Internet – a more fast and easy way to access information. Even so, the books have not disappeared from the framework of our society and perhaps they never will because, apart from the knowledge and information they give to the reader, they offer us some kind of magical and personal experience, and they establish a sort of invisible but very strong connection with our minds and souls.
To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life – says Somerset Maugham, famous English writer of the 20th century. And he was quite right. Reading takes us to different spaces and places, we have the chance to experience new feelings and ideas, to meet new situations and characters, our souls become richer, they have the chance to luxuriate and the minds generate sharper and more complex ideas about life.
A small island in the mood for… reading and sharing book experiences
When you read a book time and space expands, everything becomes more intense and you have the feeling that you are about to experience something new and meaningful for your future life. Giving to somebody else a book that you have already read and that marked your life experience is even a more noble and magical experience because you get out of your intimate self and are willing to share with the others your great experience.
In order to celebrate the World Book Day the Equal Society in Lefkada chose to make an event both enriching for the participants and sustainable for the community. It was a book exchange taking place last Sunday on the 21st of April and entitled Βιβλιο…διαθέσεις [ Vivlio Diathesis ] – which is a game of words meaning at the same time book offer and in the mood for reading. Green O’Clock has been to the event and we enjoyed the atmosphere there and the wide range of books (some of the in foreign languages) that the adults and the children in the community of Lefkada were willing to share. Overt 70 persons exchanged over 200 books on a really nice Sunday afternoon in the Cultural Center in Lefkada City. The event organized by Ms. Katerina Sklaveniti – member of the Equal Society was under the patronage of the Public Library in Lefkada. From the speech of Ms. Maria Roussou, the head of the Library, we found out that this year the institution celebrates 60 years of activity for the community of Lefkada and there are more events to be organized.
About the event Katerina told us the following: “We had only used books and the reason is that we wanted to make something non-profit and give people the chance to get books for free. We want to share our knowledge through this procedure and our love for books as well. I was really surprise by the number of foreign people who visited the book exchange. Our small town hasn’t enough events especially cultural and as Equal Society we had the vision to create more activities useful for our small island and give people the chance to feel that they have something interesting to see in their place and why not, to participate.”
And she was right as the event was a good initiative and a success. We appreciated the fact that the organization had the idea to create a book exchange and use already printed books, encouraging people to be more altruistic and share things and also suggesting that passing a book from one person to the other is more sustainable and friendlier to the environment and especially to the trees. We enjoyed a great deal meeting new people, seeing the enthusiasm of everybody’s face when picking a book new for them to exchange their own and having a nice glass of very tasty local wine on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Lefkada. A reason more to be grateful to Gutenberg and the other fellow typographers for this amazing invention that brought the book in our European civilization!