Musings: Reading in Spain

Pictured: Carl and Ellie being an awesome couple.

For the first time in the 11 years that my husband and I have been married, we both got to go visit his parents in Madrid for the second year in a row. This meant, of course, that we would go visit some book stores in the city at least twice. Because that's how my husband and I roll. We're just cool like that.

One of the reasons Madrid is one of my favorite cities ever (besides the fact that I haven't really traveled that much and that I met my husband there) is that it is a city of readers. At least, it used to be. I remember taking the metro to university and seeing all these people reading during their commute. Mind you, during rush hour that is a feat of contortionism and determination.

Pictured: I'm pretty sure this is the one in Nuevos Ministerios. I think.

Also, they have libraries in the metro. Bibliometro, which I first saw in the Nuevos Ministerios metro station and I almost fainted with happiness. If DC Metro were even remotely competent, I would ask they get these immediately. (But that is another story.)

They also have Bibliobus, which is a library bus. A library bus, you guys! How can you not love a city with so much access to free reading materials for its residents?

Now, I'm sure there are other cities/communities that have comparable services. The DMV area, though, is not one of them. Thankfully, we have pretty fantastic county library systems here, so I can't complain too much. They have an uphill battle since this is certainly not a society of active readers. (Or is it?)

Which brings me to what got me thinking about writing this post in the first place. Spanish Television (RTVE, by its initials in Spanish), has a program called Página Dos. It's a half hour show all about books. They just started their 9th season with their 300th episode. In the episode, they interviewed a few famous Spanish authors. In one segment, they talk to authors about whether or not they can live exclusively from their writing. Julia Navarro, the author of La Biblia de Barro (The Bible of Clay), among other bestsellers, said that she thinks it's a miracle she now live off her writing since Spain doesn't have as many readers as it should.

What?!?!

Does she mean, like, the country as a whole? Doesn't most of the population in the country live in the big metro areas? So, like, they have access, right? Right???

During this last trip, I did notice that there are less people with hard copies of books. But! There are several things I attributed this to:

1. I did not go on metro during rush hour at all. 
2. I did see quite a few people using e-readers. 
3. Of those on their phones that I spied on, about half were reading a book.

Anyway, my main point (if I have one) is that I always experience some form of culture shock whenever I go to Spain. I've been married to a Spaniard for 11 years, we've been together for 14, and I still run into things I don't understand. They think they don't have enough readers, while I squee internally with glee whenever I'm there and see all of these readers.

Maybe the moral is that everyone, everywhere, should read more?