#IoLeggoPerche: words are an open window on the world

Words are the key to convey messages and values, especially for people like me, who work in communication. Reading is definitely a vital means of language acquisition,  communication, and self-expression improvement. It is a massive help not only to get information but also to work on it and return it to the world, enriched with content and personal experiences.

Reading is an important part in everybody’s life. It makes us free and allows us to be who we really are. Moreover, it helps us to shape our ideas and beliefs. It represents as well a great relief from the constant worries we have to face in ordinary life.

Unfortunately, statistics are clear: Italians don’t like reading, and nearly 60% of them doesn’t even read a book a year*.

Projects aiming at changing this negative trend have been increasingly developed. #IoLeggoPerche is one of the latest initiatives, sponsored by the Italian Publishers Association, which intends to increase the number of readers and to make reading more appealing.

As to my personal experience, I am proud to be a member of the association “Libri parlati”, founded in Como in 2012.

Living in a fast-moving world, we are used to get a quick and easy access to information.

We hardly feel the need, nowadays, to go to the library for deepening and enriching research projects or lingering in a good book reading. As a consequence, libraries have to get smarter and enlarge their user base in order to meet emerging needs in today’s society.

“Libri parlati” was born to make libraries a place to bring together young people and the elderly in order to share experiences and ideas from different backgrounds. Even people who aren’t able to read can enjoy books they like thanks to this association.

We are a small group of “storytellers”. We work on every kind of books: the ones we have loved in our childhood, the best sellers, the textbooks, and we turn them into audio books available to everybody and totally free. “Libri parlati” was created with the aim of helping dyslexics, foreign people, and those who suffers from sight problems.

We are a group of 20 people who share passion for reading and that have decided to jump into this adventure. We are not actors and we neither studied diction, but we have a lot of enthusiasm and passion about our exciting activity; that’s why we are so focused on our challenge!

“Libri parlati” has already completed 16 audiobooks and 9 additional ones are in process. Our goal is to cross the finish line of 30 books by the end of 2015.

“People who have never read live only one life: their own! People who read lived 5000 years: they saw Cain killing Abel, Renzo marring Lucia and Leopardi admiring the infinite space… reading is like being deathless”. Umberto Eco

Author: Raffaella Bernasconi PR Assistant Sound PR

⃰ISTAT, 2014