The Eje de Las Letras will host the first BOOK FRIDAY on the world day of exacerbated consumption of BLACK FRIDAY
2023/11/15
- The Soy de la Cuesta Association and the Barrio de Las Letras Merchants Association publish today on the bookfriday.org website an explanatory manifesto of this pioneering literary event in the world.
- The activities of the Soy de la Cuesta Association have the support of the Culture, Tourism and Sports Area of the Madrid City Council.
The Citizen Association Soy de la Cuesta and the Barrio de Las Letras Merchants Association announce today the celebration of the first BOOK FRIDAY on the day of exacerbated online consumption of BLACK FRIDAY, on Friday, November 24.
Through the new website bookfriday.org you will be able to know the purpose of this initiative with a manifesto in defense of the encounter between readers and literature in diverse spaces such as shops, bookstores or cultural entities of the Axis of Letters (new nomination after agreement between I am from La Cuesta and the Association of merchants of the Barrio de Las Letras) and other neighboring locations in the center of Madrid.
This action is part of the #MadridSubelaCuesta 2023 plan that the Citizen Association carries out thanks to the support of the Culture, Tourism and Sports Area of the Madrid City Council. This plan provides for the celebration of in-person events and actions in the digital field, to attract new and old audiences to Cuesta de Moyano, thus contributing to the reactivation of its commercial activity - after the health crisis that began in 2020 - and in advance of the centenary of its location on C/ Claudio Moyano in 2025.
The Association also has the support of the Economy, Innovation and Employment area of the Madrid City Council, with whom it has signed a collaboration agreement for the dissemination of the activities of the aforementioned plan within the framework of the 'Madrid Capital of Fashion' project.
BOOK FRIDAY
A manifesto
Come in, buy and read! No planned obsolescence! Lifetime guarantee!
Faced with the exacerbated online consumption during Black Friday, on November 24, the first edition of Book Friday calls for a meeting between literature and readers. And not only in its usual spaces, such as bookstores, but also in other settings integrated into and close to the Eje de las Letras, a new nomination for the area located between the Cuesta de Moyano and the Barrio de las Letras. The result is a storehouse of stories, a cabinet of wonders, in a large store organized by departments in which the most versatile and durable of objects awaits us: the book.
In the company of national and international writers, journalists and booksellers, merchants and artisans, in this first Book Friday we will delve into material life through the best of fiction and non-fiction literature. All those things that accompany us on a daily basis: computers, telephones, watches, clothes, and all kinds of artifacts and gadgets, how do they live in literature? What do they tell us about ourselves?
Book Friday 2023 will offer literary meetings and audio-readings on the street and in shops, bars, hotels or cultural centers on Technology, Decoration and household goods, Fashion and accessories or Video games, games and toys. Through Adolfo Bioy Casares, George Perec, Vladimir Nabokov, Olga Tokarczuk, Verónica Gerber Bicecci, Ana Penyas, Pío Baroja, Uxue Alberdi, Don DeLillo or David Eggers, among many others, on November 24 we will discover the best stories that so many authors , in novels, memoirs, graphic novels and essays they tell about objects, their consumption and their affection.
- The Soy de la Cuesta Association and the Barrio de Las Letras Merchants Association make public today on the bookfriday.org website the program and spaces of this pioneering cultural event in Madrid.
- Authors, filmmakers, artisans and journalists such as Lawrence Weschler, Berta García Faet, Sergio del Molino, Rodrigo Fresán, Víctor Balcells, Javier Rioyo, Juan Tallón, Carlos Bardem, Paula Ortiz, Sergio C. Fanjul, Marta Fernández, Sofía Nieto, Marta Trivi , Gonzalo Escarpa or Raquel Peláez, make up a program of meetings and readings as a storehouse of stories from the material world in literature.
- Some sound quotes, made by the poet and translator Helena Mariño together with Enri La Forêt, will surprise on the street and in the spaces of Book Friday with fragments of books by Mary Shelley, Johan Huizinga, Verónica Gerber and Marta D. Riezu.
- In collaboration with the Madrid Bookstores Guild, the first BOOK FRIDAY is committed to a day of meetings and without discounts that will reward readers with access to the raffle for a batch of books for the entire year, when purchasing on November 24 at the program libraries.
- This initiative has the collaboration of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Radio 3, Espacio Cultural Serrería Belga, Talleres Fuentetaja and with the participation of bookstores, spaces, shops, bars and hotels such as Librería La Fábrica, La Mistral, Antonio Machado CBA, Ibis Styles , Los Gatos, Modus Operandi, Calzados Franjul, the León Cervantes Pharmacy and Corzón Bellas Artes.
- The activities of the Soy de la Cuesta Association have the support of the Department of Culture, Tourism and Sports of the Madrid City Council and the collaboration in the dissemination of the Department of Economy, Innovation and Finance.
With the collaboration of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Radio 3, the Serrería Belga Cultural Space, a center managed by the Department of Culture, Tourism and Sports of the Madrid City Council, Fuentetaja Writing Workshops, the Madrid Bookstores Guild, Ibis Styles Hotel and Hostal Aguilar, the BOOK FRIDAY program, curated by Giselle Etcheverry Walker, proposes to delve into material life through the best of fiction and non-fiction literature. We will explore in books all those things that accompany us on a daily basis: computers, telephones, watches, clothes, and all kinds of artifacts and gadgets, how do they live in literature? What do they tell us about ourselves?
The Axis of Letters - and surrounding locations - becomes a storehouse of stories from the material world in literature for a day. As if it were a department store, in this first BOOK FRIDAY there will be meetings to talk about books with reading recommendations by Rodrigo Fresán, in conversation with Marta Fernández (technology); Víctor Balcells, in dialogue with Marta Trivi (games, video games and toys department); Sofía Nieto with Raquel Peláez (fashion and accessories); and Berta García Faet, in conversation with Sergio C. Fanjul (decoration and household goods). Novels, memoirs, graphic novels and essays...Around 45 recommended titles that can be found on bookfriday.org and on the counters and windows of the bookstores associated with the program.
Likewise, four fragments of these readings will surprise citizens in stores, bookstores, hotels or cultural centers thanks to the sound work of the poet and translator Helena Mariño together with Enri la Forêt. Citizens who wish to do so will also be able to access these sound events through a QR code available in a variety of spaces: Los Rotos, Farmacia León Cervantes, El Consentido, La Merecida, Modus Operandi, Talleres Fuentetaja, Los Gatos, Serrería Belga, Círculo of Fine Arts, and the Enclave, La Mistral, Machado CBA bookstores, and booths at Cuesta de Moyano 7,11,17,23 and 30.
Fuentetaja Writing Workshops complements the BOOK FRIDAY program with the Workshop The Things of Poetry, the Poetry of Things, taught by Gonzalo Escarpa. This activity, like all the other Book Friday activities, is free to access upon registration on their website.
HEMINGWAY IN BOOK FRIDAY
Soy de la Cuesta concludes its program of activities commemorating Ernest Hemingway's visit to Madrid in 1923 this coming November 24, within BOOK FRIDAY.
Also on November 24 at 4 p.m. a room experience will be offered in the same room 7 of the Hostal Aguilar (Carrera de San Jerónimo, 34) where Hemingway stayed for the first time in Madrid and was inspired to write the story 'The Capital of the World '. In it he tells the story of a young man from the provinces named Paco who works as a waiter in a hostel in Madrid, a city where he has arrived to make his dream of becoming a bullfighter come true.
This action will have the following claim: Paco, Paca, or whatever your name is, come to Hostal Aguilar on November 24 at 4 p.m. You are forgiven, Dad
A day without discounts
Reader participation is essential to make this pioneering event in the world a success. For this reason, it is proposed as a day without discounts on books, which will reward everyone who buys at the following bookstores participating in BOOK FRIDAY with a number for a draw for a lot of books worth 240 euros: Enclave, Iberoamericana, La Buena Vida, La Mistral, Lex Nova, Machado, La Fábrica, Lentejo y castañuela and the Cuesta de Moyano booths 7,8,11,17,23 and 30. The winning number of the draw will be announced on November 29 on the networks social networks of @soydelacuesta and the bookfriday.org website. From this date, the bearer of the check will be able to purchase readings of their choice in the same bookstores until December 31, 2023 and until said amount is reached.
The BOOK FRIDAY initiative wants to support the book not as an economic product, but as a cultural good. On this basis, legislation has been legislated, both in Spain and in neighboring countries, through the defense of fixed prices for books and for the benefit of readers, creation and freedom of publication. Furthermore, it is the most effective way to promote bibliodiversity and for there to be as extensive a network of bookstores as possible where they can be sold under the same conditions, given that they are essential to maintain the plurality of the offer.