In June, the Kranj City Library launched bibliotherapy reading sessions. These represent the added value of “Libraries of Emotions”, a project whose main goal is to promote reading and create innovative ways to do so. At the bibliotherapy sessions, the participants, with the help of a moderator, talked about the books they had read and about their own experience. The purpose of the sessions is to help readers connect their emotional experience when reading with the situations they experience in real life.
The first session focused on the topic of “Being a Woman”, exploring the role of women in the modern world. The book selected for the session was Notes to Self, an excellent collection of essays by Emilie Pine. In her essays, the author openly discusses events that marked her personal and professional life: infertility, sexual violence, the position of women in the male-dominated world, and also explores other taboos related to the female body.
Meanwhile, our second session was titled “Times of Uncertainty” and focused on the new reality of the Covid-19 pandemic. The basis for the discussion about our own experience and feelings was Quarantine. Rome., a book by Janko Petrovec, the Slovenian journalist, translator and correspondent of public broadcaster RTV Slovenija from Rome and the Vatican. The book is a journal of the time when the first pandemic lockdown restrictions were put in place. The author experienced this in Rome, the capital of the country with the first outbreak in Europe. This makes for a good read of which the publisher says: “Definitely good literature with two faces – one cries, the other laughs.” Well, that’s how we felt too.
The response to both sessions has been fantastic, so we look forward to the next round of bibliotherapy sessions, which are scheduled for September. Interesting topics await: digital technology addiction, interpersonal relationships, mourning, etc.
Reading books is not only pleasurable but also therapeutic. Stay with us!
