We live in a certainly curious country – in curious countries, if we take into account the Catalan neighbors to the south who, in these matters, are identical. Throughout the year, no one pays much attention to the books or who writes them. Yes, there is the perception that they are useful, they give a certain patina of prestige to those who work with them, and vicariously to those who buy them and, a bit more, to those who read them. It’s talked about a little, but not a lot either, just in case. There is a social consensus that thinks they are still effective transmitters of culture, supports of fantasies and fictions that help us understand the world. But they have more and more competition, and fiercer: Netflix and company, who supply the whole world with comfortable doses of narrative, chewed twice and already half eaten, for the price of half a book a month. Synthetic intelligences will save us the trouble of thinking. But the erosion of the book’s prestige is slower than one might suppose. Today is the day of the long knives, the materialization of the absurd competition of which have been the best sellers, of the super hits, of the best sellers. Let’s see who has the longest sale. In Andorra it is done in moderation, but today Barcelona and Catalan journalism is entering an incomprehensible hysteria. A day that should be the celebration of diversity in culture has turned into a cainite struggle to see who wins, as if it were a fair and measurable competition. Bestseller lists are like the hunger games. Publishers are tired of saying that, at most, the ten on the list represent only five percent of the total number of books purchased. But that’s the same: what counts is to see who is able to pull their nose out of the pool of misery.
