Reading is sexy

It's been a few years since the legendary posters released by the independent publisher Gallo Nero featuring figures like Audrey Hepburn, James Dean, and Paul Newman reading. The black and white posters proclaimed "Reading is Sexy" and invited you from a lover's house to share something more than sex that night. In fact, they still do . If you go to almost any bookstore, you're sure to find one of those posters pointing to the horizon of new possible readings .

The Madrid Book Fair has just closed, breaking sales and visitor records. I've spent the past two weeks wandering between booths, buying books, signing books, meeting writer friends, and talking to readers with almost animal-like curiosity. At night, at one of the post-fair parties, the question we all asked ourselves was the same: where did all these people come from?

The Spanish publishing sector has been growing since the pandemic. In 2024, a historic record was reached, with sales of nearly 77 million copies. Reading books doesn't seem to follow the logic of our turbo-capitalist lifestyle, where we have less and less time, less desire for almost everything, and much less attention. But it's happening nonetheless. People are buying books beyond their means. And the best part: people are reading them.

Four months ago, Nuria posted a video on TikTok saying she was looking for partners to start a contemporary reading club. Within hours, she had more than 80 people signed up. She had to close the account because she couldn't keep up. That's how Desgranando libros began, the reading club that meets at the La Fabulosa bookstore in Madrid and has had to split into groups to meet capacity. Something similar happened to writer Júlia Peró with her online reading club Libros arrugadas, with around 200 subscribers. Every time a slot opens up, it fills up.

The viralization of books is one of the few things I would save from social media. Gone are the boring campaigns of the Ministry of Culture. Today, reading promotion is done with a like. Every day, more Bookstagrammers and BookTokers are communicating to the new generations that reading is sexy. Between dances, reading together, and ASMR videos, I'm watching this whole reading boom fascinated, thinking about what Carmen Martín Gaite said: "The same thing happens with books as with people: some people start talking to you about others, and a network of acquaintances of friends and friends of acquaintances is woven and expanded, whom you end up meeting out of curiosity or by chance."