Let's Get Reading

Alice Munro arrives in Spain.

Flipping through the English version of El Pais last week (I know, I know, but, hey, it arrives inside my International Herald Tri… sorry, International NYTimes) a particular sentence caught my eye… “The situation with Spain is no better, at least compared with its neighboring countries: each Spaniard reads an average of 10 books annually despite having 100,000 new titles at their disposal every year.” The article was about the recent International Spanish Language Conference in Panama City.  Apparently, book publishing has joined the many industries that aspire to sales over all else.  “The strategy has focused on selling books rather than creating reading habits.”  Who needs customers anyway?

Lead to…. immediate panic over my own reading health.  The newspaper lamented the sorry state of Spaniards’ habits of getting through 10 books a year.  Did I even make that cut?

Luckily Goodreads shows that I am now on book #12, with two more months to go in 2013.  Spain would have to grudgingly fit me into its poor performing average.  But I’ll need to get going if I am to fit into the United States average of 15 books read each year.

Jack Dorsey of Twitter/Square commented in a recent New Yorker article that he saw the rise of platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and Vine during his morning commute to the Twitter/Square offices in San Francisco: no one was reading magazines or books.  On Madrid public transportation, however, books still seem in high demand; a good percentage of commuters have one (or a Kindle) in their hands.

In fact, Madrid is full of stores selling actual, hold in your hands books.  Half a block away from my apartment is a wonderful international book store.  Walk in either direction from there and you’ll hit a bookstore focused only on philosophy and another only on art (each of which are tucked between very pleasant restaurants I might add.)

Not to mention the pop-up bookstores which suddenly rise out of the concrete, the used bookstalls leading up to Retiro, and now, with my great luck, the Spanishization of the American bookstore/coffee-shop. For example, at Tipos Infames, you browse books or have a coffee or a glass of wine at one of the small tables amongst the stacks.

While It's Hot

I am on the last pages of Winter in Madrid by C. J. Sansom.  The book takes place in Spain in 1940-41; the country has just gone through its civil war (1936-39) and Franco is inching towards joining the Axis in WWII (1939-45). The protagonist of Winter in Madrid is an Englishman who has been contracted by the British embassy to go to Madrid and spy on his old childhood friend who may or may not be into some shady dealings.

The book is your traditional well written political thriller.  Besides that, what’s fascinating is the description of Madrid during this period.  Sansom describes Café Gijon looking much like it does today; but the Prado is an echo chamber with most of its paintings stripped from the walls for safe keeping.  La Latina – a barrio known today for tapas hopping – is in complete disarray. The park Casa de Campo is strewn with undiscovered landmines.

Needless to say, it’s given me some perspective on what Spain’s gone through in past years – something that’s difficult to fully grasp as a foreigner.

I was recently talking with Ana about the Spanish civil war. Her parents were young children during the time and lived (they still do) in a small pueblo in central eastern Spain.  Food was scarce and Ana’s grandmother would cook one big pot of whatever was on hand, potatoes, vegetables, a small bit of meat, bread.  She’d take the pot right from the stove to the center of the table, where the entire family – siblings, cousins, children – were gathered.  Everyone would scramble to get a share.

Today, Ana tells me, that her mother will rise a handful of times from the table during a meal in order to reheat her plate.  To taste her food is to burn your tongue.  But this is how she is accustomed to eating –more than hot– because as a child she would not have gotten food any other way.

We are shaped by the things that happen to us.  It’s something I can’t get out of my head as I walk around Madrid these days.

And out of Nowhere Grew a Bookstore

Madrileños love their books.  There is a bookstore on nearly every street…some are small and boutiquie while others could be considered chains (but I have seen nothing like Barnes & Noble and it is refreshing.) In fact, this little bookstore seems to have grown right out of the middle of the sidewalk:

I swear it wasn’t there two weeks ago.