That was the catchy slogan of this year’s celebration of World Book and Copyright Day on April 23, an annual event traditionally spearheaded by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco). It is a day meant to honor authors and literature and to call attention to the need to respect copyright.
All the girls I ever fell for were girls who read. By “fell,” I mean the absolutely-could-not-get-her-out-of-my-mind-for-years-until-she-posted-her-engagement-ring-on-Facebook-and-prominently-tagged-me kind. The pretty ones are easy to forget, especially if they stop being pretty the moment they open their mouths. It is the girls who read who gently slip their fingers into your subconscious and never let go. [...]
It is beyond dispute that bookshops and libraries are the very reflection of a learned society. It also follows that the reading habits, and not merely the pattern or pastime, of its people show the degree of its academic culture and the depth of its intellectual civilization.
IF YOU are still able to read this, it means the end of the world did not take place on Dec. 21 as direly predicted—and perhaps anticipated with much dread? And it is a good time as any, having surpassed that obstacle, to look ahead but only after taking stock of how far we have gone in digital publishing.
IF THE National Book Development Board (NBDB), a government agency attached to the Department of Education and created by Republic Act 8047 in 1995 were truly living up to its mandate of promoting and developing the book publishing industry, then it stands to reason that November should be one of its busiest months in the year.
WHEN I lived with my parents, their visitors would often be given an obligatory tour that included a stop in my library, which occupied two of the biggest rooms in the house. If I was unfortunate to be working at the time of the intrusion, I would often be given a sorry look and ignorantly [...]
IT MUST be the refreshing novelty and the utter simplicity of the Reading Club library on Balagtas Street, La Paz, in the unpretentious side of Makati that have earned for it such attention, especially in the social networking world. You almost wonder: Why didn’t anyone think of this bright idea before?
I have walked the busy streets of New York, spent sunsets in the Caribbean. Wearing a red kimono, I watched the cherry blossoms that same year I danced with Zulus around a bonfire. I have witnessed how romantic a city can be from atop the Eiffel. I have discovered what’s more to Sydney than just an opera house, to Hong Kong than just glistening skyscrapers.
In a number of forums on literacy and mother-tongue-based multilingual education (MTBMLE) that we’ve attended, discussions become rather animated when teachers start talking about how the dearth of properly crafted reading materials in a particular mother tongue tend to, shall we say, dampen their eagerness to transform their young wards into fully competent readers as quickly as possible.
You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.—Ray Bradbury, author of “Fahrenheit 451”
As a poor kid, I studied in a public elementary school and grew up learning the exploits of Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Gabriela Silang and Ramon Magsaysay. We had no library, but through the tutelage of my good and committed teachers, I learned there lived Filipino men and women highly deserving to be exemplars of greatness.
What is your first memory of a book? That was a simple question that unfortunately had more than one simple answer. Racing through the many rooms in my mind, I found not one but many childhood memories of books.
