The dying novel survives yet another generation
"Fiction gives us everything. It gives us our memories, our understanding, our insight, our lives. We use it to invent ourselves and others. We use it to feel change and sadness and hope and love and to tell each other about ourselves. And we all, it turns out, know how to do it." These are the words of Keith Ridgeway in an article in the New Yorker published last week.
He comments that although many people are turning away from fiction and focusing only on biographies and popular science, claiming to have no time for the frivolity of fiction, he believes that fiction is not trivial, nor is the novel dying.
We say "Yes!" and "Hooray!" in hearty agreement with Ridgeway's sentiments. From the time we were youngsters, books such as The Famous Five, Nancy Drew novels and The Secret Seven ignited our curiosity and passion for reading. This passion served as the foundation for the freedom of our thinking and we credit reading with much of our creativity, daring and entrepreneurial drive today.
It is for this reason that we are launching a humble, but important project. We are collecting books from our friends, family, clients and candidates at our offices in Bryanston and we will be donating these books at the end of the month to a selection of needy school libraries.