Jordi Nadal (Lliçà d’Amunt, Barcelona, 1962) makes a report of each book that he has read since he was 16 years old. It already has 1,942 chips. He is the founder of Editorial Platform, in 2007, and has been in the trade for more than 35 years. In June 2017, the general director of Human Resources of Caixabank, Xavier Coll, asked him to prepare a course to train managers of his group “reading literature.” It was the dawn of Book therapy, a work that was born with the compilation of 12 authors and that is now being reissued with more than thirty. It is a small declaration of gratitude to the reading, serious and rigorous, he assures.
–Business resists because the world is so bad that books are more necessary than ever, because people need meaning and books provide that meaning. The world is so bad that books try to do the same as doctors: heal. And if they cannot heal, they accompany you.
–Has confinement –word of the year– been able to encourage us to find reading?
– Confinement corners you. When reality is bumping you, you shrink and protect yourself. But at the same time you try to look beyond the day to day, a very harsh reality and, then, you look for beautiful, true and beautiful things, and there books are a great refuge.
– What is life without books?
– Life without books is as if they give you the Palace of Versailles and you only stay in one room. You have the master key to open all the doors, but you are left living in one room. It may be very good, you may be a genius …
“But it’s a bummer.”
– It is said that Kant never moved from Königsberg, his hometown, but it was Kant and it is not normal.
– Yes, it is not normal.
– Be careful, nobody says that people who are not readers are not wise, but the usual thing is that those who read are richer in nuances, in inner life, in knowing, in thought and in knowledge than those who do not. Therefore, whoever does not read is always in the same room in a palace. In other words, he who does not read is alone in a room of life.
– Almost half of the Spaniards confess to never or almost never read.
– We have a very beautiful country, a very good climate and a lot of excuses for not reading. And then, by tradition, the Enlightenment did not reach Spain. The French represented the invaders and nobody lets the invaders do things. In Spain, Enlightenment, the industrial revolution and a bit of book culture have been lacking. That said, for example, Andalusia is a great land of poets. You hit a kick and you get great poets.
– Can you imagine a world without bookstores, in which only Amazon exists?
-No. At the end of Fahrenheit 451 there is a world in which books are burned and there are some people who each remember one work. Art, beauty, truth, goodness are inherent not only to the human condition but also to what makes life worthwhile. If you remember the book RoadIt is a work that could not be more depressing, but even in that situation there is a father who protects his son. I don’t know if I explain myself.
–No.
– I mean: the world is bad but there are people who write beautiful works, the world is bad but the book has more future than ever. If there is only one digital bookstore and everything is served online, I don’t think life is worth living.
“Life without books is as if they give you the Palace of Versailles and you only stay in one room”
“Isn’t that exaggerated?”
-Well … If everything is served online, there will be no human contact. Of course that is an exaggeration, but there is always some truth to exaggerations. When everything arrives online, there will be no human contact and if the only conversation you are going to have is with the guy who brings you the sales package on line, we are going to get sick.
– Bad way we take.
–We have to define what health is. For example, when the last bar closes in a small town in Spain, there is a brutal impoverishment of society.
– Which author has marked you the most?
–Albert Camus, without a doubt.
-Why?
–In the greatness of his life, his work, his work, his destiny is what for me is the most beautiful thing in life: the greatness of being a solitary and caring man.
– Given so much immediacy, is reading quality time?
-Clear. The disease of our time is speed. It is a trap. Speed is very seductive, but it hurts you, it is pernicious, because it prevents you from finding the authenticity and meaning of things. It allows fraud and nonsense.
– Give an example.
–The difference between Donald Trump and me is that he can write a free immediate tweet in which he lets go of the whip and when I want to publish a book I have to wait 6 months and spend money. As one publicist in the US said, principles are only principles if they cost you money. That is why Twitter is a machine that allows so much hatred.
– Reading cures populism?
–Reading cures you of the disease of I, me, with myself. Doors must always be left open to wonder, beauty, mystery and poetry.
– If reading opens up the thought, why is it not encouraged more?
-Do not care. There is nothing more difficult than to command free and educated people.
–And for that, how many books do you have to read per month?
–With one a month, it’s fine; and four is already heaven. To understand each other, dictatorships are a color, boring countries are bipartisan and plurality are the colors, the nuances. The pantone has 1,114. For a complete life, we must read 1,114 books, one for each pantone color. But it’s not about getting super cool. Read what you like and for that it is important to have a header bookcase. In life, having a family doctor is as important as a bookseller. Bookstores dispense things that help the soul.
