Twelve propositions on books, reading and hospitality

Abstract

This short essay aims to pay homage to the books, the most faithful companions of conversation that human beings can meet. With the help of twelve propositions, we will try to emphasise the infinite reasons we have to show them gratitude, starting by reminding that books allow us to navigate in unknown waters and, at the same time, to find safe harbours inside the maze of our memory. Successively, we will thank books because each of their pages is a window on the world and because they are masters of tolerance, hosting within them the most distant voices and guiding us towards a pedagogy of listening. A listening that must start from their silence, modulated by punctuation, without which we could not grasp the harmony and rhythm of their words, able to inhabit our consciousness even long after reading them. The essay conclusion delivers some warnings: books can never be completely closed since this would be unwise censorship, they cannot be burned, torn, abused, desecrated, because we would suffocate their breath, that gives humanity the ability to vivify the world. For all these reasons, libraries, being the houses of books, must be respected and inhabited as holy spaces, in the sense that, through books, they open us to the mystery of life, time and truth.