Brescia. On Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th May, for the third consecutive year, “Brescia to read”, the great widespread festival conceived and directed by“Brescia cultural association we read” in collaboration with the Urban Library System and the Municipality of Brescia.
Thirty-eight recently published books, deeply linked to Brescia and its province and selected by a widespread artistic direction, they will be presented in fifteen participating libraries, bookshops and cultural institutions with the dual objective of describing our province and promoting the local literary scene
Born to enhance the Brescia literary scene, “Brescia to read” is a unique festival of its kind in terms of number and variety of participating local writers and locations involved, and represents one of the main showcases for Brescian authors published both by small and medium-sized publishing houses and by large national publishers, but also and above all an inexhaustible source of discovery for readers interested in zero kilometer stories. The exhibition is in fact entirely dedicated to the stories and points of view that our community produces, to novels or essays set in our province and to the work of contemporary authors resident in our province. Since the first edition in 2022, it boasts the participation of numerous libraries, bookshops and cultural institutions in Brescia, which give rise to a sort of “widespread artistic direction” – coordinated by the Brescia cultural association, read Aps – and which on the days of event host presentations of recently published books (in many cases presented as a preview), connected to each other by some thematic threads: from detective novels to historical non-fiction, from stories of female emancipation to contemporary fiction.
The strong point of the festival is the passionate commitment of the dozens of volunteers who throughout the year feed the web magazine of the same name with their reviews www.bresciasilegge.it, trying to make the most of the authors’ ability to tell the past, present and future of our territory with its lights and its inevitable shadows. Alongside the more classic meetings with authors hosted in bookshops, libraries and cultural institutions, this year there will be two interesting novelties: a series of traveling presentations which will take place on Sunday morning and which, taking inspiration from some particular books and with the participation of same authors, will accompany the public along new routes in the name of a Brescia waiting to be discovered, but also some musical readings – organized in collaboration with theI Girasoli Association at the Cascina di Parco Gallo – which will enrich and give rhythm to conversations about poetry and its surroundings.
Among the many names that will enrich the exhibition, worth mentioning are authors published by important national publishers – from Ilaria Maria Dondi (Einaudi) to Filippo Ronca (Mondadori), from Virtus Zallot (Il Mulino) to Mimmo Franzinelli (Mondadori), from Fabienne Agliardi (Fazi) to Gigi Simeoni (Bonelli ), from Veronica Del Vecchio (Newton Compton) to Andrea Tortelli (Giunti). Without forgetting expert and appreciated local authors such as Francesco Savio, Claudio Cuccia, Enrico Mirani, Enrico Giustacchini, Tita Prestini, Giovanni Quaresmini, Giovanni Peli and many others. Authors capable of achieving a certain level of notoriety at a provincial if not national level, who are only the tip of the iceberg of a scene which, despite the difficulties, has a lot to tell.
A richer program than evercareful to satisfy the most varied tastes of readers and ready to give two special days giving voice to a city that has many stories to tell, a lot of desire to tell them and a lot of desire to read them.
