I libri viventi

Abstract

The author, anthropologist and Honorary Chairman of the “Archivio nazionale diaristico” of Pieve Santo Stefano, highlights how the phenomenon of living books should be considered in a more general rediscovery of the oral culture as a literary genre. Moreover, he encourages to think about how the bookmen of human libraries hold out against the disappearance of the social skills in oral transmission, create events between theatre and life and have their common place in the library. These bookmen stimulate us to go beyond smartphones, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter in order to look at ourselves: their culture is not anti-technological, but a proposal of reconstruction and creation of a right place for the “spoken speech” of life experience.