Book-friendly places

The Free Reading Zone is waiting for submissions of places for its literary guide to Malopolska.

“Strefa Wolnego Czytania (Free Reading Zone) is for those who have selected reading and focus on literature: readers, publishers, and animators of culture. For all those who show others how to live and breathe books in a city that lives by books. The Zone includes people and places. Planned events and spontaneous campaigns. Publications and blog entries. The Zone is the literary side of Krakow” – this is how the “Znaczy Się” New Art Foundation describes the undertaking.

“Together with the Readers of Dziennik Polski, we want to collect the most interesting spots in which literature lives on the map of our region. They should include places where one may exchange books, discuss one’s impressions after reading or simply read. Comfortably, without rush or stress, with pleasure,” says Olga Brzezińska from the “Znaczy Się” New Art Foundation.

The originators encourage the inhabitants to inform about such places in Malopolska, where one may spend time reading in a nice and pleasant atmosphere. They may be both cafes and parks, squares.

The Free Reading Zone has been in operation for several years. During the first edition of the campaign in 2010, its organisers searched for book- and reading-friendly places in Krakow, involved in the promotion of reading.

Thanks to the inhabitants’ help, several dozen such places were awarded Zone certificates. They included very diverse places: al. Waszyngtona and its vicinity, municipal buses and trams, the Vistula Boulevards, as well as clubs such as Cafe Philo, Camelot, Cheder Cafe, Dym, and Piękny Pies, as well as the Nowa Huta lake, the Botanic Garden of Jagiellonian University, and the Jordan Park.

The zone is present online at www.strefawolnegoczytania.pl. There one may find information about all the events taking place under its aegis – meetings, lectures, discussions, and other undertakings, such as Przekaźniki Książkowe, i.e. a book swap including titles from the field of cooking through to motherhood.

The Zone also enters the public space, thanks to campaigns such as the flash mob (a group of people assembling suddenly for a specific, often amusing purpose) Czytanie na Kładce Bernatka (Reading on the Bernatek Footbridge), during which crowds of book lovers sat down on and around the wooden walkway connecting the Kazimierz district with old Podgórze.

If you know a place in Malopolska that you think should belong to the Zone, a place where “book-related events are initiated, where it is pleasant to read, where one may discuss books and get infected with the reading virus”, tell us about it. Complete the form on the Zone’s website. Submissions may be sent until the 31st of August. In the autumn, a literary guide to reading-friendly places in Malopolska will be published.

The Krakow Festival Office partner is the campaign’s , and Dziennik Polski is its media patron. The project is implemented with financial support from the Malopolska Region.

Source: Dziennik Polski