'Reading As A Foundation Of Humanity' – Der Club Organizes National Reading Campaign

"The way she lay frozen in the ice she looked more ghostly than anything Charlie had ever seen. As sheriff and investigator in charge of all mysterious deaths in the county he had seen a lot of dead bodies over the years. The snow had been swept from the crater and, with her swirling hair, the extended arm, and the red torn jacket, which seemed to wave behind her, the young woman locked within the black, polished ice looked like a leaping dancer imprisoned in obsidian. He kept wondering who she was and how she got there…" 

Between 100 and 250 visitors to each of the almost 100 Club shops almost simultaneously listened to this passage from the most recent novel "The Divide" by best-selling author Nicholas Evans. Der Club Bertelsmann had organized the national reading campaign under the motto "Because I Like To Read." Famous actors and local celebrities participated in the event, aiming to interest people in the world of books. With Amelie Fried in Munich, Thea Dorn in Berlin Mitte, Nina Petri in Hamburg, and Leonard Lansink in Münster, among others, celebrities in 13 cities presented entertainment, suspense, history, and contemplative excerpts from the world of books for two hours. Nobody in any of the Club shops learned what the death of the young woman found in the wilderness of Montana was all about. But, sitting between the rows of bookshelves, listening to the stories read by the celebrities, they all shared the special joy that can come through reading. They suffered with the couple Ben and Eve when they received a phone call and learned about the death of their missing daughter Abbie in Nicholas Evans' book. They smiled when they met the sympathetic hero Pausback in Wolf Serno's new historic novel entitled "Der Balsamträger" (The Balm Carrier); they shuddered when they learned about Dan's macabre interests in Charlotte Link's feline crime story from the Club anthology "Mordsgeschichten," and they became contemplative when they heard about Paulo Coelho's strange encounter with a pianist living in exile in a supermarket in "Sei wie ein Fluss" (Be Like The River Flow), a compilation of tales, opinions and ideas.