Library Day in Europe

October is the month chosen by quite a lot of European countries to mark “Library Day”, in particular, this day is celebrated in Spain and Germany on 24^th October. The celebration of this day is related to the destruction of the Sarajevo Library – the Bosnian National library – in  August 1992.  Why should libraries be remembered? Just because they play a central role in our societies: national, public, local libraries are an essential part in the cultural life of our cities, towns and villages. In my view, the word library stands for CULTURE, culture in capital letters; these days people who are in charge of official institutions boast about their plans to foster the cultural life of their towns or cities but perhaps if they just invested more in libraries, their plans would be much more successful. Libraries are cosy and welcoming places which offer you a seat to have a rest, a book to open and a new story to discover: by reading a book you get the chance of exploring a new world and the opportunity of leading a different life because literature has the ability to change people´ s lives and depriving people of the access to a library implies depriving people of the opportunity to change and improve their lives.

We all know that if it weren´t for the stories created by so many writers, lots of the films that we love wouldn´t exist, that´s why, a blog about films can´t but pay tribute to the excellent work of libraries and librarians.

Nobel prize in literature 2017: Kazuo Ishiguro

Two weeks ago, Kazuo Ishiguro was named this year’s winner of the 2017 Nobel prize in literature; according to some news articles, the writer was honoured and “taken completely by surprise” and he even wondered if the announcement was just a case of fake news, a term that seems to have become very common these days. But I would dare say that this piece of news has come as no surprise  to  those of us who have read some of his works. As usual, good stories that have been told in a written form have also been turned into well-known films.