The book Thief
This is no time to get squeamish: bookstores are mortally wounded and they will only survive if those of us who love them are up to the task; be clear that they will only come out of this if all the immense heritage that they have given us throughout our lives ( shelter, joy and hope ) translates into an energetic response, a resounding display of affection, resources and support beyond a nice tweet, a stupid photo reading on your Instagram. If there has ever been a moment in which to return all the love that books and bookstores have given you, be clear: this is it.
Book sales in Spain have fallen by 80% with the start of confinement , according to the Nielsen report that has set off an alarm that we already sensed: without the Madrid Book Fair (postponed until October) , without presenting news and with closed bookstores, a shadow hangs over the book world that evokes the sector to a change of model or to the gallows, that in the best of cases. The worst case is the little neighborhood bookseller with no more resources than his illusion, a handful of books piled up on the shelves and a clientele that talks, but does not lift a finger. Well, it's time to do it.
How? buying books . The Government has lowered VAT on electronic books and digital press to 4% but it is not enough for small businesses, what the hell is it going to be enough for? booksellers deliver at home (such as Alberti in Madrid or through libelist , the network of independent bookstores), put bonuses available to loyal customers like Railowsky in Valencia or they are heading towards online sales in an impossible battle. Ask your bookseller, write to him, call him ; I don't know what the solution is, but I am clear that a gesture of affection and the contribution we can make is an immense act, a small battle won in this war without winners. And it is that in addition buying a book is not an expense —never was— but rather the best investment what can you do because "A well-chosen book saves you from everything, even from yourself" Says the author of one of the novels of my life, Francis Scott Fitzgerald.
I cannot (I do not want) to imagine my life without everything I have read; without Felipe Benítez Reyes, Pío Baroja or Milena Busquets, without Javier Marías, Cortázar or Federico García Lorca; without the S sonatas of Valle-Inclan, Ordesa by Manuel Vilas or my father's almanac by Jiro Taniguchi, no Crystal City of Paul Auster or Farmland by David Trueba, without oscar wao either Jose Arcadio Buendia . I am who I am because I have read and feel, like Karmelo Iribarren, that that is my country . The rest are stories.
- “My wife and my daughter,
- these walls and these books,
- a bunch of friends
- they love me
- —and the ones I really love—
- the waves of the Cantabrian
- in September,
- three bars, four
- with the beach joint.
- Although I know that I left
- some things i can say
- that, if anything, that is my country.
- The rest are stories."