The October 4, 2024 will be the day on which theeighth edition of the reading marathon ‘Veneto reads’ icreated and promoted by the Veneto Region together with the regional section of the Italian Libraries Association AIB and the Regional School Office for Veneto – MIM Veneto, in collaboration with the Italian Booksellers Association – Confcommercio Veneto, the Italian Booksellers and Stationers Union SIL – Confesercenti Veneto, the Venetian Publishers Association, the Italian Publishers Association, the Association of Independent Publishers and Read to Read.
The Reading Marathon is an event that has always brought together educators and all the actors and readers in the book supply chain. L’the objective is to promote reading and books through the involvement of schools, libraries, bookshops, publishing houses, professional readers and more. It is aimed at everyone with the aim of contributing to making the practice of reading a widespread and recognized social habit. It will be read with children, but also with and for adults, the elderly and children. The goal has always been to read together, everywhere and out loud, and to share this passion.
The data with which we can describe people’s participation and involvement grows from edition to edition. In 2023 the Reading Marathon recorded a record number of initiatives spread throughout the regional territory. 1,332 events, which began with the warm-up (641 events took place from April to September 2023) and culminated with the day of 29 September 2023 (691 events in one day), in which readings aloud, meetings with the author, reading group meetings, mini reading marathons, book presentations in libraries (572), in schools (438), in bookshops, museums, publishing houses, retirement homes, publishing houses.
Veneto is one of the most virtuous regions in terms of books and reading. In addition to the extraordinary response that comes to us from the reading marathon ‘Veneto reads’, there is a lot of data regarding Venetian reading and readers.
Veneto is the region that has the most local reading agreements at a national level, of the 728 reading agreements in Italy 93 are in Veneto. The Veneto Region itself has been promoting the Regional Pact for reading since 2022. Veneto has more than 250 reading groups; approximately two million visits per year to public reading libraries; four million volumes lent in public reading libraries; public reading libraries have invested around one million euros in promoting reading.
Reading is a journey, in space, in time, in feelings: an unorganized journey, for which each traveler can freely choose his own itinerary. But reading doesn’t just mean traveling, but also living, dreaming, reflecting, laughing, crying, shivering, growing, learning, feeling human and understood. Rediscover yourself. And getting lost between the lines… finding yourself.
Like every year, the Reading Marathon suggests going deeper;
- Venetian authors
- Books that talk about Veneto
Beyond some specific themes. There are two main themes that will guide the readings for 2024:
There travel literature could not be missing in the year in which we remember the seven hundredth anniversary of Marco Polo’s death, who represents the archetype of the traveler and writer/traveller of which Veneto has a very long tradition and the sports literature enters the themes of the Reading Marathon in the year in which Veneto is the European Sports Region.
To these topics are added themes and personalities linked to other anniversaries that occur this year:
- Eleonora Duse
- Giacomo Matteotti
The guiding image chosen for the 2024 edition of the Marathon is also inspired by Marco Polo and the journey. The illustration is by Michelangelo Rossato and is taken from the book “Marco Polo” ARKA 2024 editions.
During the spring and summer period and throughout the month of September, as a ‘warm-up’ in view of the Marathon, events will take place throughout the Veneto organized by ‘Reading to Read’. There will be readings, debates, insights and conversations, with the participation of publishers, cultural operators, teachers, professional readers and volunteers.
Among the actions aimed at approaching the Marathon and in-depth studies:
Page after page, book after book: towards the 2024 Reading Marathon
Meetings with authors, publishers, booksellers, librarians and readers in libraries, schools and bookstores
Territory.
- Train by reading
Borgoricco Municipal Library
May 13th, 9.30am – 12.30pm - A year lived literary
Regional meeting of Veneto reading groups
Verona, Sala della Gran Guardia
Saturday 25 May - With books: many ways to promote children’s literature
Martellago Municipal Library
Thursday 30 May, 9.30am – 12.30pm - The instinct of storytelling
Badia Polesine Municipal Library
12 September, 8.30pm - Di-versi in verse
Thiene Municipal Library
September 19th, 5.30pm - Venetian literature: a female perspective
Asolo Municipal Library
September 26th at 5.30pm - Reading the landscape
Sedico Municipal Library
1 October, 5.30pm
The Reading Marathon on 4 October 2024 it will then be, as in previous editions, a moment of great visibility for libraries, schools, bookshops, readers, reading groups and an opportunity to talk about the promotion of reading tout court. H.24 is read throughout the Veneto.
For those who plan to organize an event within the 2024 Reading Marathon, it is possible to insert it in the two sections ‘HEATING UP’ and ‘MARATHON’ of the site www.ilvenetolegge.it
The 2024 Reading Marathon, with the constantly updated program for the coming months, can be followed on www.ilvenetolegge.it and on the page www.facebook.com/IlVenetolegge ilvenetolegge2024
Themes of the 2024 Marathon
Every year the reading marathon suggests delving into Venetian authors and books that talk about the Veneto, as well as some specific themes:
- Venetian authors and books that talk about Veneto
- Our region has a very long tradition of travelers and writers/travellers and Marco Polo, whose seven hundredth anniversary of death is commemorated this year, represents the archetype of this figure. Through the stories and testimonies of their travels, readers also travel with them and get to know new cities, new ways of living and thinking. To Kublai Khan’s question in Italo Calvino’s “Invisible Cities”: “Do you travel to revisit your past? Are you traveling to find your future?”. Marco Polo replies: “Elsewhere is a negative mirror. The traveler recognizes the little that is of him, discovering the much that he has not had and will not have.”
- The events of sport and the exploits of the athletes are experienced in the moment in which they happen, but then they need someone to tell them and sing the epic and the fall. Sports literature enters the themes of the reading marathon in the year in which Veneto is the European Sports Region.
- We remember the great divas for their performances, but Eleonora Duse, whose centenary of death this year marks, was a woman capable of renewing the way of being on stage and acting. Her figure is similar to that of many women who have innovated in their fields (from the artistic to the scientific, from the political or customs point of view). As she used to remind the divine: “Without the woman nothing goes. Even God had to recognize this.”
- Giacomo Matteotti is a tragic figure in the Italian historical panorama and is mostly known for his dramatic murder. On the centenary of his death, the year in which ominous echoes of war return, we also like to highlight his anti-militarist commitment, through texts that speak of peace and non-violent solutions to conflicts.
For information
AIB Veneto
Sara Bossi
[email protected]
