Translator: Maurício Kakuei Tanaka Reviewer: David DeRuwe When was the last time you asked a friend for a book recommendation? When was the last time you recommended a book to someone? Or when was the last time you commented on a book you were reading, with a co-worker, for example?
I'm sure the vast majority of you must have answered, "I don't know," "I can't remember," or "It's been awhile. " Look at the latest Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics, IBOPE, survey from 2016, called "Portrait of Literature in Brazil. " It showed that 44% of Brazilians can't be considered to be readers.
That means 44% of Brazilians haven't read, totally or partially, a book in the last three months. That's a lot of people . .
. almost 100 million people. The figures don't improve much when we talk about the Brazilians who can be considered to be readers.
This is because the average number of books read is only 2. 4 a year. I confess that if you had asked me this same question three or four years ago, I would have answered, "I don't remember.
I don't remember the last time I recommended a book to someone," even considering that, as a child and young man, I enjoyed reading and always had a book beside my bed. But why is this the reality? The answer is simple: reading isn't part of our daily lives, our routines, or our conversations with friends.
It's not at the family lunch table on Sunday, and it's not in WhatsApp groups. Nobody talks about the next book they're going to read, an author who won a literary award, or a book release in the same way they talk about the upcoming season of "Game of Thrones. " I say this from my own experience.
So why is it like this? The truth is that, as a person who didn't talk about reading three or four years ago, something changed in my life. How, in such a short time, was I invited to share with you my experience about books?
You might think, "Oh, in the meantime, he decided to take a literature course, went to work in publishing, or spent a sabbatical year in Asia reading books. " I wish! That's not how it happened.
I'm a lawyer who works in an office, has a pretty busy routine, and goes to the gym. I have friends, a girlfriend, and, above all, I don't have any literature training and haven't graduated in letters. I'm an ordinary reader, like most of you here.
I want you to know that I'm an ordinary reader. In fact, things started to change when I found literary profiles on social networks. That's right: a parallel universe that I knew nothing about.
There were people there on social networks talking about books. At the beginning, I started following these profiles, but I didn't think I would follow them for long because those people, commonly called "booktubers" or "bookgrammers," talked about books that were very far from the ones I was used to reading. I was never the kind of reader who knew what to read.
I used to look at the bestseller list, thinking because they were bestsellers, I would find the best books there, if we can say there are better or worse books. I wasn't born into a family of avid readers either. I wouldn't read classics because I was afraid they would be difficult, related to something old, or linked to mandatory college entrance examinations.
Nowadays, noticing how I used to think three or four years ago, I realize that I had a real literary bias. Indeed. But by following these literary profiles every day, I started to have a desire to read different books and to leave my comfort zone.
And that's when I gave it a try. Bit by bit, my literary bias began to disappear. I started with a book written by a contemporary author, born in Angola.
Later I went to a Russian classic by the much-feared Dostoevsky, and then I chose a collection of short stories from one of the most amazing Brazilian authors, Lygia Fagundes Telles. I saw there was no way back. The coolest thing was realizing that, although I lived in an environment where so little is said about books, I had found a place where I could share my experiences and use them as a guide for my next readings.
Gradually, I began to think of how I could build on this idea. If an ordinary reader like me had a very good experience with a Russian classic, for example, why couldn't other people have that? I don't have any literary background.
So I came up with the idea to create my own literary profile. In May 2017, when I was 24, I created Book. ster.
Just to give you an idea of how this wasn't part of my daily life, I was even afraid of how people around me would react to the news. At first, I decided to block everyone I knew. Nobody knew about Book.
ster. I was anonymous. I blocked my parents, sisters, friends, co-workers .
. . everyone, except my girlfriend who had helped me.
Also because I'm not crazy about lying to her. (Laughter) And so, gradually - I didn't think it was going to become something big. I thought it would be me and 100 followers at most talking about books, and it'd be awesome, because I'd found my space - but gradually, in a few weeks, a few months, from 100 followers, I got a few thousand, and then publishers began to contact me.
They wanted to send me books. Every day a box of books was delivered at home so that I'd be aware of a release, a new author, or even the work of these publishers. It was also then that I had to tell my parents who were thinking I had become the crazy online-shopping guy.
(Laughter) But then, after a while, a friend of mine found out. In the end, his reaction was so cool, I decided to unblock everyone and admit that, maybe, I had become one of those literary profile guys. I'd become a bookgrammer.
I'd become the Book. ster. Today, after almost two years of Book.
ster, I'm very happy that over 90,000 people are sharing literary experiences with me. This shows that, despite what most people think or say, and despite the stereotype that Brazilians are non-readers, there are many people who actually want to read. Sometimes they don't know where to start, they've lost the habit of reading, or, perhaps, because of kids, school, college, or graduate school, there isn't enough time.
Now they're finding, on their own social networks - often places which keep people from reading - ways to return to this habit. People always ask me, "What are the benefits of reading? " In addition to improving my writing, helping me at work, and bringing me more knowledge, it gives me the ability to see and put myself in another's shoes.
Through reading, I can see problems and situations from the perspective of others. Whether I'm reading a book by a Somali-born writer who was genitally mutilated as a child; a storybook of women who fought and went to the front in World War II and suffered their entire lives from the trauma of killing someone, or the atrocities they experienced; or a book about a child who spent an entire childhood suffering from the lack of family structure, I put myself in the other's shoes. I come to understand and respect others more .
. . for their differences and for who they are.
Now you may be wondering, "Okay, but then how do you read more? " My answer is not to read more. The answer is to read always.
Reading is a daily habit. Bring this habit into your daily life. When I say daily habit, I'm not telling you to read 200 or 300 pages a day.
I can't do that, for example. If you can, great, and I envy you. But when I tell you to read every day, read .
. . three pages.
If I come home and read three pages, I'll have read that day. Doing this, your reading rate increases a lot, you will no longer lose the thread of the stories you're reading, and you will no longer abandon books. Besides this personal change, I really insist on the importance of disseminating reading.
Have you changed personally? Change with another. Tell your friend.
Talk about reading. Ask them what was the last book they read. Share it, spread it.
Pick out those books on your bookshelf and donate, circulate, or lend them. So when we talk about reading more, we have to think of two things. First: reading is a daily habit.
Let's change ourselves. Second, let's encourage others. Let's bring literature to our daily lives.
The incentive for reading can and should come from each of us. As Mario Quintana said, "Books don't change the world. People change the world.
Books only change people. " Thank you.
