“My home is where my library is,” these words belong to one of the most cosmopolitan figures in human history – Erasmus of Rotterdam. Because of his pursuit of knowledge, he refused to be described as a nationalist and considered Latin to be his mother tongue.

The magical power of books which shape human thought and help us all make important decisions in our lives is something many of our contemporaries are aware of, so they spend every minute they can reading. We see them on their way to work in the underground, sitting on a park bench or in a café, but most often, of course, in libraries. Book lovers form a special kind of community, they are usually successful in their careers and are certainly broad minded. For many of them reading is a way to escape from the world’s woes, and they love books that tell them something about themselves. A good book will never go out of fashion – say the people working at the Sofia City Library, which hosted the Reader of the Year award ceremony for the second year running. The initiative was joined by 27 regional libraries across the country each of which nominates the reader who has taken out the biggest number of books in 2016. The campaign, launched by MEP Maria Gabriel, aims to encourage reading among all ages. The prize for this year’s winners is a visit to the European Parliament in Brussels. They will be joined by the 2015 winners, as their own visit was postponed, because it coincided with the period of high risk of a terror attack in the Belgian capital.

“This year the organizers decided against selecting just one reader of the year, but to bestow the honorary distinction on all. This decision was made because their results were very close – most of them had taken out more than 200 books during the year,” said Sofia City Library Director Yulia Tsinzova.

“They all deserve to be congratulated and deserve to win. Winner No. 1 is the reader of the Sofia City Library who has read 231 books in 365 days. Readers like him are people who take up a book every spare minute they have. They do more than read, they lobby for book reading. I know that many people organize a group of friends and acquaintances who also read the books they have taken out of the library, then they too become readers of ours. That is why the number of library card holders has been growing and now stands at 41,000. In the first ten days of 2017, 10,000 books were taken out, a clear sign that the library is growing more and more popular as an institution.”

Ekaterina Schultz is Reader of the Year for 2016 in Varna. She is just 17 and goes to the School of Mathematics in the city. She started reading when she was in the 5th or 6th grade because she had made the acquaintance of people who read a lot and that provoked her own interest in reading. Ekaterina says that her taste in books has evolved with time, that she first enjoyed fantasy but now prefers world classics.

“I love to read, I go to the school library, it is a very good library and I think it is a good model of how libraries as an institution can interact with readers. There is only one librarian, but when new books have to be bought for the library, we raise money by organizing charity bazaars. We cook the food ourselves, then sell it to the students and spend the proceeds on books for the library. So, we choose what titles to buy and that is a very good example of a library functioning in such a way as to keep its readers happy.”

“It is very rewarding, reading is a delight, it is magic and it is so good to receive prizes for something you enjoy doing anyway,” says another one of the winners – Kaloyana Slavova who, as card holder of the Sofia City Library even orders books online:

“I love fiction, especially by contemporary authors like Jonathan Franzen. I enjoy books about life, about people, about the complexity of human relationships, about the obstacles the human race has surmounted in its history. Often, we can identify our own selves in books, we can see what people like us have done in similar situations. I really enjoy discovering the wealth of language, the words authors use in their books. Reading is a delight to the senses. It becomes indispensable, and as some authors say – the unpunished drug, reading, is a life-long addiction.”

English version: Milena Daynova