It was a fresh August afternoon, and I was walking down the main boulevard of the capital. I stumbled upon the booksellers’ kiosks, as I always do, and decided that it was finally time for me to buy a new book.

Most of the books that I had read up until then, I had taken from my father’s library, from the city’s public library, and recently, from my university library; I had become a frequent reader at the latter.

I read ancient books including all the history of Greek and (of course) Albanian literature, and other foreign literature too. They were distinctive among my father’s books. I also read many other old and important works from world literature.

I became familiar with Ulysses’ infamous battles, Penelope’s many attempts to retain her throne and her love, and the terrible power of Moliere’s riches; the tragedy and power of revenge in Shakespeare’s works and the need for truth in Hamlet; pearls in “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”; I knew why Hugo was the father of romanticism, and why he wrote about the aristocracy and upper classes of England and France- although this was also clear to me in Stendhal’s “The Red and the Black”.

I formed ideas about how the world functions thanks to Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina,” and I admired Pushkin’s poetry, but found it hard to forgive Tatyana for the letter she sent to Onegin.

From books I had learned about the ‘licentious’ life of Madame Bovary. Sometimes I was an idealistic Elizabeth from Jane Austin because at least I knew about life in the countryside, and had a passion for it. However, I also knew that I did not want a person like Darcy; I dreamed of a love like that of Ravik for Joan in “Arch of Triumph,” excluding his character. I had limitless sympathy for the two tragic writers of the ‘Lost Generation,’ Erich Maria Remarque and Ernest Hemingway.

I still did not understand, despite the much discussed similarity of “Nausea” by Sartre and “The Stranger” by Camus, the existentialism that characterized their works.

For me “The Stranger” was the most simple book that I had read, but also the most difficult. I had read somewhere that if Sartre were a ship, Camus is the boat attached to this ship. I planned to read both books again to understand how true that claim was. I had to do the same with Kafka’s “The Trial.”

“100 Years of Solitude” made me cry many times, and in “Love in the Time of Cholera” Marquez introduced me to a world that I would never otherwise have known. Mark Twain accompanied me through childhood, as “Sophie’s World” did during my adolescence. Hesse’s books, like “Siddharta,” are for me trips to an unknown universe, and Schopenhauer is perfect for spiritual transcendence during childhood.

I became familiar with Albanian literature from school books like “Lulet e Veres” (“Summer Flowers”) by Naim Frasheri and “Lumi i Vdekur” (“The Dead River”) by Jakov Xoxa.

I re-read Kadare sometimes, and Kongoli was an amazing author for me.

I had taken so many books from the library and read them so furiously that I cannot remember them all now. All that I needed to know about life I had learned from books. I gained valuable opinions; I became familiar with the power of art, and I was nurtured by it.

I believe that the greatest value of mankind is books. Despite today’s technological revolution, nothing can substitute the feeling that grips you when turning a page of a book, the feeling of underlining what interests you, of folding the edge of a page so that you can start where you left off; the feeling that a printed book gives you.

Searching for a new book to read at the Prishtina stall, I chose Kundera, as I knew him only from “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” — a beautiful book which leaves a number of unanswered questions. I had just finished “Sputnik Sweetheart” by Murakami and could not wait to read more of this author’s books, but I picked Kundera as I wanted those questions answered to start my summer.

I was worried that I might never have enough time to read all the books that I saw in the library, and as I mulled this over, I thought about how most of my peers were just trying to get a new app for their phones.

What will you learn from your phones, besides completing levels in games and taking good pictures?

I finally picked my new book, thinking about why the library wasn’t full, and why so few people read in this country…

With a book in my hand I pondered: Maybe it’s from ‘Ignorance’…

Why do we read so few books?

Choosing a new book in a life shaped by reading.

Blerina Morina

Why do we read so few books?

Choosing a new book in a life shaped by reading.

Blerina Morina