Have you heard about “BookSurfing”?
Discover “BookSurfing”, a unique literary format and community in Tirana. There are “BookSurf” chapters in many capitals all over the world. The Tirana one has been meeting for over a year, offering gatherings in English and in Albanian.
But how does it work?
Each gathering begins with a simple invitation: bring a passage from something you have read and would like to share. It might be a fragment from a novel, an essay or a poem that has moved you. You then read it aloud to the group, and everyone pauses to listen intently before moving on to discuss it.
As one of the “BookSurfing” members, puts it:
“There is a particular hush that falls over a table when someone begins to read aloud, and it is for that hush that I keep returning to BookSurfing. The group stays small on purpose, and deliberately mixed, different ages, different languages, different reasons for reading. A single evening can travel from Lea Ypi’s memoir of a childhood many of us recognise from the inside, to the restless generosity of David Foster Wallace, to Zarathustra coming down from his mountain, to a page of Cormac McCarthy in which the language is plain and the world is not.”
What follows each attendee’s sharing of their piece is a special quality of discussion which is again best captured in the words of long time attendees:
“The book becomes permission to be honest”
She is describing the way in which “often someone stops explaining the text and begins, almost without noticing, to explain their own life through it.” This resonates with the words of another member who adds “BookSurfing discussions are less about ‘What did the author intend with this piece’ and more about ‘how does this piece speak to me?’
This is where the literary and the personal begin to meet and where, over time, a group of people who came together around books begins to feel like something more: a community.
“I came for literature and found people, friendships that outlast the evening” says a long time attendee. “At BookSurfing, I feel part of a very welcoming and inspiring community.” says another.
One thing that facilitates the fostering of such cohesion in the group is the way in which it is a safe space: “I feel like myself and can naturally express that part of me that needs to think and share ideas with others.”
Does the idea of discovering diverse genres you wouldn’t normally pick up, while learning about what inspires or challenges the people around you appeal?
You can learn more about “BookSurfing” and fill in the new member form.
https://www.instagram.com/booksurfing.albania
