Every day should be World Book Day
And other thoughts on marking important occasions and celebrating accordingly. Including today.
Another Thursday, another day in the office.
I have mixed feelings about being here and every week I go through an internal battle trying to convince myself to leave the house.
On the one hand I work mostly from home (wouldn’t change it for anything) and seeing colleagues in person every now and then is nice and maybe even healthy. Plus I get to wear something different from yoga clothes.
On the other hand, I need to take public transport to get there (argh), I don’t get to wear yoga clothes (double argh), and I need to carry a heavy backpack (triple argh, definitely don’t miss doing this every day).
Not to mention the office is a sensory minefield and it’s not guaranteed I’ll be able to work during my time there as I’m fighting multiple distractions.
And then there are of course more serious matters that impact office experience in ways that can be crippling. What if I arrive and someone is at my usual desk or my favourite mug has been taken? How does one find meaning when the things they hold so close to their heart have been taken away from them by total strangers?
Cake, that’s what usually how.
And today there seems to be lots of it around for reasons that escape me.
One thing I know for sure: Cake is the official marker that something big is happening. It’s how my workplace says: “Look, we’ve spent money on both saturated and insaturated fat treats -because we are inclusive- to bring your attention to something that is happening today. Here, have some cake and be grateful for us commemorating an occasion that you would have probably never heard about otherwise and that all this sugar will make you to excited to remember ever again.”
What could it be going on today, an anonymous 7th March?
Social media comes to the rescue and informs me that it is World Book Day, an occasion that I could have missed were it not for Foyles reminding me that today, of all days, I am allowed to celebrate books widely because the calendar says it’s the time to do it. Oh, look, they’re doing double points, too. I guess I need to stop by after work, I tell myself as if that weren’t what I do every Thursday on my way back home.
That must be it, then.
This is a very inclusive place and we celebrate all kind of events that can be celebrated and then some. World Book Day is a perfectly plausible specialoccasion that calls for cake. Althoug, if you ask me, I’d prefer a day off and a gift card with £20 to spend at any bookshop of my choice. But I’ve learned to pick my battles so I’m ready to settle for a slice of whatever is on offer.
Besides, today is actually a mock World Book Day because everyone knows that the real celebration for Día Internacional del Libro is 23rd April to commemorate the deaths of Cervantes and Shakespeare. It’s also Saint Jordi in Catalonia and tradition calls for roses to be given to women and books to men, although Spain being a modern country nowadays either can receive each. You’d be wrong to think such an occasion is also marked in the UK calendar, especially since it involves their most acclaimed writer. 7th March it is, take it or leave it. How unceremonius, seriously.
I shouldn’t be suprised as people in this country have little respect for tradition and come up with their own fringe celebrations when it suits them, which makes it extremely confusing for those of us that operate on standard convention to make everyone else’s lives easier. For instance, everyone knows that Mother’s Day is the first Sunday of May and Father’s Day is on 19th March. And that’s a fact.
Why is it so difficult for the British to accept it? Why do they have to mess things up by moving Mother’s Day forward to March and Father’s Day to May? Why, oh, why do they always have to impose their customs on other cultures?
And don’t get me started on April’s Fool which unexplicably doesn’t fall on 28th December as it should.
Anyway, time to put aside my justified cultural superiority and stop speculating.
I need confirmation of what all this buzzing in the kitchen is at this time of the day, when the 12 pm lunch my colleagues have ingested is closer to its way out than in. Luckily for me I operate on Spanish Standard Time, which means 2 pm is almost time for me to have lunch so I can embark on an excursion to the kitchen to investigate further without raising suspicion.
As I head to the microwave to heat my lunch, I see there’s a display of boxes of different shapes and I can see they’re marked with M&S. Marks & Spencer for the non-initiated among you. That in itself is very revealing. This is no your usual Tesco crap, this is the good shit. We are splurging, that’s what those two letters united by an ampersand say. Who would have thought they took World Book Day so seriously at my workplace?
“So, Ellie, what’s the special occasion?” I ask on my way to the microwave as one of my colleagues is opening boxes and carefully placing their sugary content on plates meticulously lined up on the kitchen counter.
“Oh, this? It’s for International Women’s Day!”
The information takes me by surprise.
What? But today it’s not 8th March. Today it’s 7th March, World Book Day. Aren’t we going to celebrate it? What kind of joke is this? Books don’t get enough recognition despite everything they do and keep doing for us.
I’m outraged and can’t believe Ellie is happily arranging iced treats on plates as if nothing.
How can we ignore the importance of books in our lives?
Books are nurturing in times of distress, always ready to offer comfort with their words. They inspire us and spark our imagination with tales of everything we can achieve and all the different experiences we can have regardless of what the world tells us we can or can’t do.
They are never predictable or boring and come in all sorts of formats, from paperback to hardback to special editions beautifully illustrated or gigantic coffee table pieces printed in high quality paper. And you can choose among a wide range of stories and content: novels, poetry, drama, comic books, essays, historical books, philosophy books, nature books… Books also cater to your secrets fetishes, for business books can only be for masochists or sadists, depending if you’re in the reading or writing end.
Books, despite what some may try to convice you of, never lose value when they are no longer new for there is something particularly appealing in a book that has been around for a while, its pages yellowing, its cover soft after having been caressed by so many curious hands, its story transcendig trends and moods across time and generations of people who recognise in such a book the value beyond its price and the beauty beyond its faded look.
Books don’t try to impress anyone with marketing tricks or PR stunts or other gimmicks because a remarkable book doesn’t have to fight for attention. The story it tells is enough to leave a lasting impression on those who are lucky to cross paths with it. You’ll hear of great books long before you lay hands on their pages and you’ll be passing on the love to others who have yet to read them as you wonder how you could have lived so long without them in your life.
Not to speak of how valuable first editions and rare books are for they contain the weight of history within their pages and can transport us, just by looking at them, to a world that came before us and that will keep turning long after we have expired. They are an asset you want in your personal library for they are indeed a bridge between past, present and future.
Books can change lives.
They are responsible, for instance, of me being where I am today, physically, mentally, and intellectually, when nothing in my birthplace and circumstances pointed to such a destiny.
Books have taken me to Bali, to Senegal, to the USA, to Turkey, to Italy, to Morocco because they taught me to love foreign people and languages as if they were my own, creating a thirst for knowledge that could only be satied the more I read, which in turn provokced an itch that could only be calmed the more I travelled.
So, how, I wonder, can we not be celebrating World Book Day?
“So all this cake is then for International Women’s Day?” I ask in disbelief, not trying to mask my disappointment as I stare blankly at the cupboard in front of me, waiting for the microwave to complete it’s cycle, all life gone from my eyes after this shocking revelation.
“Yes, and since you are a woman you can eat cake!”
That’s the voice of Sura who must have entered the kitchen while I was busy zooming out. She’s always a bundle of joy around food. As I turn to face her she’s smiling, plate in hand, looking at Ellie who is still unboxing sweet treats -we’ve really gone above and beyond- and asking if she can have a slice of cake already.
“Of course you can” and there it goes a big chunk of what looks a scrumptious chocolate fudge cake which smells like heaven even from where I am, where the fumes of my homemade chickpea and spinach soup are coming from the microwave into my nasal cavities, their healthiness almost offensive around so much indulgent decadence.
“Cristina, have some cake, come on, before we take it out and everyone jumps on it” Sura urges me as she directs a fork-impalled piece of cake towards her mouth.
I’m ready to argue that we’re depriving books from the only day of the year where they can receive a bit of recognition and we believe that just because they’re around in bookshops and we get to see them regularly it’s enough, but it’s not. We need to do more for them and stop taking them for granted.
We need to give them equal opportunities and hype them up in the same way we do with a film we’ve enjoyed, or a group that we like, or a new place that has just opened. Books are the pillars of our civilisation and the keepers of culture and knowledge. I’m outraged at how we’re just using their day to eat cake and celebrate something else. Bonkers.
I’m ready to start a speech worth of the best Roman orators when two events take place simultaneously. The microwave signals my food is ready at the same time a male colleague I don’t know steps into the kitchen.
“Uuuh, what are we celebrating today?” he asks as he goes to make a coffee.
“International Women’s Day, but everyone is welcome” Ellie says gleefully as she is now placing chocolate biscuits on a plate that she offers to our male colleague.
“Well, I guess this cake isn’t going to eat itself, is it?” and he’s already fetching a plate and a fork from the cupboard and getting ready to take a slice of the cake I’ve been eyeing from where I stand.
Wait a minute.
What is actually happening here?
Not only we’re not celebrating World Book Day, which honestly is beyond me, but also the patriarchy gets to intrude in this misplaced celebration of womanhood.
Can’t they at least wait until tomorrow?
That’s when they are allowed to chant their anthems “Not all men” and “But we don’t have an international men’s day” and fight against the oppression they’re experiencing as a result of women asking for equal rights. Not today. And definitely that cake is not for men, can’t be for them, right? Men have already had centuries of having their cake and eating it. Let women enjoy how that feels at least once, even if it is not exactly the day the calendar tells us we’re allowed to do it.
As I eat a slice of ginger loaf cake and a triple chocolate biscuit with my afternoon coffee, I’m still appalled by the lack of recognition of World Book Day.
I resolve I need to do something about it even though I’ve already bought five books this week because when you believe in a cause you can’t let society dictate when it’s the time to celebrate or capitalism will spot it’s yet another opportunity to sell you things and the underlaying message and the reason why you are marking the occasion in first place will get diluted in slogans and hashtags that will be forgotten as soon as the day is over.
If we truly want to change the world then every day has to be World Book Day, I tell myself. And yet, I feel that’s not enough to mark the occasion now that I’m aware of the celebration. I can’t let it pass unremarked.
As I leave the office and go for my usual walk along Southwark towards Waterloo and then Embankment bridge, I know damn well where I’m headed. It’s my regular stop every Thursday before taking the bus home, but today there’s something that tells me I need to show up and rise to the occasion.
I can’t take for granted the fact that books exist and I can have access to them in multiple forms (new, second-hand, in-store, online) because that’s not the case for everyone and certainly wasn’t the case for me growing up.
It was only when I arrived in London that I was thankful for being in a city where so many bookshops, of every imaginable kind, were available to me. Where I finally had the freedom to choose where to go and what to buy without anyone questioning my choices.
And here I am at last crossing the doors of Foyles, which is buzzing with people who unlike my colleagues are celebrating the right event on time and in time. But they don’t trick me. Most of them are a bunch of opportunistic pseudo-book lovers who are jumping on the World Book Day bandwagon only for the double points and who are nowhere to be found the rest of the year. I can speak with authority as I’m at Foyles every week at this exact time and this is a far cry from the regular footfall.
Let them buy books, I think, I have important places to go and can’t waste time. More specifically, the fouth floor, that’s where I’m headed as it hosts the books in foreign languages. I’m reading a lot in English lately and I have an urge to switch language so I hope I can find something appealing in French, Italian or Spanish.
As the lift doors open I head to the French section. Maybe I could get Perspective(s) the latest Laurent Binet novel that I’ve been eyeing since it came out last year but I didn’t want to pay over £20 for. Binet is a safe bet and his novels never disappoint. Or maybe I should get Spatriati by Mario Desiati, which won the Strega Award in 2022 and I was very intrigued by when it was out in hardback, but again I thought I’d wait until I could get the more affordable paperback edition I have now in my hands as I’ve transited towards the Italian section.
The thing is that when you buy books on a weekly basis finding something truly exciting takes longer as the over exposition to bookshops erodes a bit the enthusiasm for their content and gives way to a sort of lethargy that annihilates the burning desire for titles, past or present, I’ve been restraining myself from buying.
In fact, as I’m holding the Laurent Binet and the Mario Desiati, I don’t feel that bookish tingle that announces a superb choice is being made and I realise I’m not particularly inspired by either. Is this what I really want to buy to mark World Book Day?
I feel it should be something more extraordinary, a book I’ve really wanted to lay my hands on for a long time and I can’t believe it’s finally happening today, at long last. A book that has been consuming a good portion of my waking hoursthat and sends my mind wild with anticipation at the prospect of going to bed with it at long last. Delayed gratification can be extremely satisfying when it comes to books, perhaps even more so than it actually is with people.
I keep browsing the shelves, Binet and Desiati still with me, but I pace back and forth from the Italian to the Spanish to the French section, waiting for a sign, for a cover to capture my eye, for a title to send my imagination on fire, for my book sense to activate in front of a story that deserves my full attention.
As I am engulfed in a mystical dance to invoke inspiration and which consists of lowering down, getting a book from the bottom shelf, reading its blurb, putting it back, standing up to reach for another book, leafing through it, putting it back, exhaling in despair and then start over, a name flashes through my mind.
Of course. How could have I forgotten?
I dash to the Spanish section, hoping to find see a name among the stacks. And there it is the novel I’m looking for. Un Amor by Sara Mesa.
I have leafed through this book so many times, always putting it back as it is £22 despite being a paperback edition. I couldn’t bring myself to splurge in such a way when most of the books I buy nowadays are from the charity shop and come with a £3 price tag.
Un Amor, however, came under my radar last year as it was a literary sensation in Spain. I became even more interested in it after having watched an interview with Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet where she discussed the screen adaptation, which fascinated me even more as now I could also look forward to watching the film.
Un Amor tells the story of a woman, Nat, who arrives in a small rural town where she doesn’t know anyone and starts forging relationships with her neighbours and the men around her. Some of these connections will take an unexpected turn that will lead to choices that will make Nat question her morality and and her place in the world as a woman.
I can feel the tingle now. This is what I’ve come here for. This is the kind of special book one buys to mark a special occasion.
Un Amor is now telling me it’s the time for its words to hit me because I’m ready to welcome the blow. I want to believe this is not exclusive to booklovers and that everyone can experience that sensation of a book speaking to us directly. Perhaps that’s the real reason I couldn’t bring myself to buy this book before. There was nothing to be said between us.
I put back in their respective shelves the novels by Binet and Desiati without hesitation. There’s always time for men.
But not today. After all today I was eating cake to celebrate women. Whether it is the day the calendar says I have to do so or not it’s irrelevant.
Abroad is an independent publication about identity and belonging, living in between cultures and languages, the love of books, music, films, creativity, life in London, and being human in the age of artificial intelligence.
“What’s that cake for?”