I must tell you that I´m really happy: I was looking forward to this day!! My remembrance of last year is totally different: World Book Day couldn´t be celebrated under normal circumstances because we had been placed on lockdown due to the pandemic. Obviously, celebrating this red-letter day wasn´t a priority at the time and doing without celebrations has just become normal and merely a collateral effect in the framework of a medical emergency that has affected us worldwide.
We are still immersed in the pandemic but this year we are free to visit our favourite bookshops. Some of us are still reluctant to hold books in our hands and to smell the scent of brand new paper. A physical barrier has emerged between our eagerness to read and our face masks but we have also learnt that cautiousness has become our ally over the last months.
Even if bookshops and libraries were closed, it seems that the number of readers grew noticeably last year thanks to the pandemic so you see, every cloud has a silver lining.
As usual, I must recall that the industry of cinema is indebted to literature and that´s why I feel the need to write about this red-letter day every year. When I look back and I think of lockdown, I have very few nice memories but one is linked to viewing the film Brooklyn (2015). That evening I stopped thinking about my worries and I just focused on the life of Eilis Lacey, wonderfully played by Saoirse Ronan. That night, through that character, I travelled to Ireland and to New York in the societies of the 1950s and I went through the dilemmas of a young Irish girl while I was – on lockdown – at home. We can´t underestimate the transforming power of the cinema to change our lives regardless of how ephemeral that change can be. By the way, Brooklyn is based on the novel of the same name written by the Irish author Colm Tóibín. The novel was published in 2009 and, in 2012, it was described as one of the 10 best historical novels by the British newspaper The Observer.
Today, just celebrate World Book Day as you wish. Feel free to ramble near the book stalls – there are fewer this year – or go to your local bookshop o just stay at home and read for a while or watch a film based on one of your favourite books. This pandemic has deprived us of many things, don´t let it deprive you of the pleasure of living other lives.
