Hidden treasures
Ah, the charm of books! The million dreams, the hidden treasures, the many hours of rapturous pleasures! What would our world be without them? Fortunately we need not contemplate such an ominous thought, yet! Avid readers can sleep peacefully, for now. Books are alive and well, and in fact flourishing. Man has found nothing to replace them partially or fully, despite the overwhelming media distractions of the 21st century. A growing attraction of "Book Fairs" held in major cities around the world are gaining in popularity. Frankfurt has recently held what is considered "the biggest book show in the world". Other cities regularly hold prosperous book fairs including London, Moscow, Rotterdam, Cairo, New Delhi, Taipei, Havana, and tens more.
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Initiated two years ago by the United Nations and held every 23 April is "World Book Day", an international celebration paying tribute to books, encouraging everyone to discover the myriad benefits of reading, with Egypt an active participant this year. 23 April was chosen supposedly for the number of births and deaths of several prominent authors on this day. It is as good a day as any to celebrate the joy of reading, and according to statistics from publishers and booksellers, the output of books is tremendous. Sales in the US alone reached $29.6 billion annually accounting for one-third of sales globally.
Only a century ago, the book stood alone as man's source of instruction, distraction, entertainment and enlightenment. The invention of moving pictures, radio, TV, computers, videos, DVDs and other means of divertissement presented great competition, threatening the sure position of the book. There are only so many leisure hours in a day and time has become ever more precious. Who has the time to read a book? The Book is not accepting defeat; it is waging a noble battle and is still standing. Novel succeeds novel, thriller succeeds thriller, mystery succeeds mystery, in breathless haste each treading upon the heels of its predecessor. A new kind of book has been gaining ground since Dale Carnegie wrote his classic How to Win Friends and Influence People in 1936. How to books have filled a void with the public and many have become immediate best-sellers. Their number is baffling and continues to grow, from How to Set a Table, to How to Tie a Knot, these books keep turning up, cook books, diet books, health books, baby books, flower books, flour books and on and on, stand side by side with history, philosophy, poetry, economics, politics, and more than ever hold their own. Novels of every colour and hue, every variety and hybrid, imaginable and unimaginable are seen on bookshelves every day. Yet the book that outsells them all, and tops the best-seller list year after year is The Bible. According to The Times of London: "It is wonderful, weird... that in this godless age, this one book should go on selling every month, month after month, written in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) over three continents (Europe, Asia, Africa), over a period of 1,600 years, by more than 40 authors, translated in 3,000 languages (out of 6,800 distinct languages) it sells more than 100 million copies a year.
The only books that have come close to "holy books" are the remarkable works of a young English woman, alone, divorced, destitute, single mother of a little girl, living on welfare in Scotland. Her name, J K Rowling. Her books -- the adventures of an orphaned bespectacled wizard boy, Harry Potter, and his life at Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft. Her first book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone as well as subsequent books have become something of a publishing sensation. As of May 2004 sales of her first five books had reached 265 million worldwide in 40 languages. Bearing in mind that sales over 5,000 are considered a success and 30,000 a best-seller, one can imagine the extraordinary achievement of Miss Rowling. Conceived as a series of seven books covering the life of Harry Potter from ages 11 to 17, her first five books have broken all records, delighting young and old. Number six, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince scheduled for a 16 July release has already become a best-seller in pre-sales, online and in bookstores. Parents as well as children enjoy the books, now translated in 61 languages in 200 countries: "Parents for the intelligence and spirituality, kids for the adventure and mysticism" giving pure fiction the impression of undoubted fact. She writes with passion, vision and credibility, fascinating and enchanting fans with her own brand of magic, as magical as the world she draws. Publishers are certain she has written yet another story that will dazzle. Her fans have no doubt of that!
Children living in a world of "15 minute television programming where a story unfolds and warps" discovered reading all over again. Her simple picturesque style brings the child back to the magic of the written word. Parents are very grateful. Rowling proves that not only can children appreciate a book, but a complicated story, and a long one at that. Most books weigh more than the child reading it!
Rowling is not the only author selling books in the tens of millions. Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code has sold over 44 million copies since its release in 2003. Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones is also among the decade's best-sellers.
Another wizard of book sales is J R R Tolkien . His Lord of the Rings was a best-selling trilogy half a century before it became a multiple- Oscar-winner-mega-production for the screen.
Often maligned and dismissed as a frivolous money machine, Hollywood has contributed significantly to the sale of books by turning them into movies. All cinema productions around the world have leaned heavily on popular books, and in turn have made them even more popular. Seabiscuit by Laura Hilldenbrand is a prime example of a best-selling novel that became a blockbuster movie and fostered even more sales since. Nineteen of this last decade's best-sellers have become hit movies.
Since Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, his writings have shot to number one in Germany, and increased sharply in other countries with Salz der Erde ( Salt of the Earth ) leading the charts.
Books, good books that is, remain a vital key to our acquisition of knowledge. "Children of the brain", they allow us to visit great authors of today and yesterday. We are invited into their worlds to partake of their knowledge and imaginative powers. They bring back to life the vibrant colours of faded pictures of the past; the beauty of places, people, and human emotions. They take us down the very roads they have trod, to share their deep sadness, their ecstatic gladness. We examine their minds, share their thoughts, understand their theories. We cherish their timeless legacy to humanity and preserve their contributions by reading their books.
Despite a seemingly prosperous era of book sales, many feel that "literacy itself is doomed in some kind of digitalised future." More is the pity -- but for now we continue to derive a kaleidoscope of pleasures and satisfaction from books. This is a love affair, that regardless of its ups and downs has survived a bumpy road. There is a silver lining however, with International Book Fairs, World Book Day, attractive libraries, inviting bookstores, half price books, used book sales, online book sales of used and new books -- all inducive to more reading, igniting the flame of love between man and the written word.
If this love affair is doomed, let it not be for another 100 years or more. Let it be after our children and grandchildren have discovered the hidden treasures that are found between the pages of a book.
All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been;
It is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.
From The Hero as Man of Letters,
Thomas Carlyle(1798--1881)
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