This week for #GetToKnowTheRosendeReaders, we meet Alberto!
I had the lucky chance to sit down with Alberto at #ITAInstituteCon3 last July and to ask him a few questions about his personal reading experience and about RosendeReads!
Let’s start with the first question: how did you get into reading? Was it something that has always been with you as a child or would you say it’s more of a passion you discovered yourself?
A: I think it’s both, in a way. I know that when I was younger my dad always had a book in his hands and then my mom is actually… I don’t know if she considers herself a reader, but she’s always reading a book. So both of my parents, whether or not they consider themselves avid readers, were always reading. I know that in high school I feel like I didn’t read as much as I should’ve, especially when it came to taking tests on books… I didn’t do that. I was very lazy when it came to that. And then I had one teacher at the end of high school, in my last two years, and she was just an incredible, great teacher and specifically in the way she talked literature and that helped me realize that I love books and that I wanna keep reading.
Do you usually set up a reading challenge for yourself?
A: No, I don’t like putting any pressure on myself to read. And that’s one of the challenges of the book club: It does put pressure on me to read. I like when it’s more casual and then I happen to finish the book. But I feel like with books that you really like you never really have to challenge yourself, you end up just reading them all. But with the book club, because we do a bunch of different types of books and authors… there are some books that I’m like “I thought I would’ve enjoyed this book a little more” or “I thought I’d have gotten into it faster” so it is taxing but yeah, I try not to [challenge myself]
Is there a particular moment in which you realized you wanted to put together a book club?
A: Not a particular moment but I remember I talked about it to Tessa and I mentioned it before to my parents like “You know, I wanna start a book club” and then the idea kinda grew and I’m kinda of impulsive so I was like if I don’t do it today, I’m not doing it. So I was like “How would it work? It would work like this. We would do this, this and this” and I was like I’m just doing it and hopefully I can… like Tessa wrote on my birthday card one year this Kurt Vonnegut’s quote that said “I believe that our job is to continually jump off cliffs and try to build our wings on the way down” and I think that’s kinda of what the book club was.
I also remember when you talked about the book club for the first time, you were here in Milan two years ago and you were like “I’m going to create a book club” and I was like “I don’t think he’s really gonna do that” and a month later you were like “Listen, this is what we’re gonna do. This is how it’s gonna work”
A: Yeah! So it was like kinda of a process but when it came time I was like… It’s happening today!
What’s the thing you love the most about RosendeReads?
A: The community and the books we read together but mostly, the conversations we have. That’s my favorite thing cause it involves the community and it involves the books but it’s really what we find in the middle. That’s my favorite thing, yeah.
Do you have a favorite and least favorite book we read?
A: Favorite book? It’s always changing but “Song of Solomon”, I loved it. Least favorite… maybe like “Diary of Anne Frank”
Not Catch-22?
A: Mh, no! I actually started to enjoy “Catch-22” although it was a hard book to read in one setting. But what was the other one… maybe “Into the Wild”, I found difficult to read too because at first I thought it was gonna be a different book because of the film. I admire McCandless more in the movie than I did in the book. I feel like in the movie they really romanticized his passions and the book talks about that but because it shows a lot of both sides I started to feel like this kid is really selfish, in a way, until it was too late…
Right?! Selfish and ungrateful
A: Ungrateful, yeah! That would be a good word. But then again, I do believe the movie may have captured his essence a little bit better in a sense that he obviously didn’t find himself to be ungrateful, he was just obsessed with the status-quo and didn’t want to live by any rules but his own and he was really willing to go that far to do it and to search something bigger than himself, which is cool. But yeah, least favorite one.
Is there a genre you think we would never read?
A: Anything written by Donald Trump because I don’t think it’s written by him… But I’d say maybe we would read something written by Donald Trump, one of those books he did write cause maybe we wanna see what he thinks but at the same time I think that’s stupid.
Yeah and I think it would make us more angry
A: Exactly. And I don’t wanna give him any more money or anything, so probably not
I think you once mentioned a book about Donald Trump? Like “Fear”?
A: Yeah, “Fear: Trump in the White House” by Bob Woodward. I was reading that, I’m almost done with that but yeah, I don’t think I’d read that one with everyone because I believe political opinions should stay, you know, to myself.
I don’t know if there’s a genre we wouldn’t read because I don’t wanna say “You can’t read those books”, cause it goes against everything we believe in.
How do you see this book club growing? Like I remember you mentioned once merchandise and a fundraising?
A: Yeah and I was looking into it and it gets difficult with settling it and I don’t want anyone to think that I’m ever taking money from it. I do eventually wanna have it growing into something we eventually can… my mom and I were actually talking about this. We are both always on the look out for ways to expand and how we can start to grow our community to help. That’s what the goal is: to take our RosendeReads community and help the community outside. I want us to become an active book club, in terms of service.
If you could describe to a newbie what RosendeReads represents in order to convince them to join, what would you say?
A: It’s the sharing of ideas through one common thing, which you can find when someone studies in University or is in a class: it’s a sharing of ideas and growth through one communality, whether it is the course you’re taking or the subject matter you’re currently reading. And RosendeReads is an extension of that, it’s us reading one book and like what I said my favorite thing is, it’s the conversation in between about that book with the people from all over the world that you get to grow and learn. So yeah, I’d be like… just why wouldn’t you?!
Last question: a message you would like to send to the members of the book club?
A: Keep reading, keep exploring, keep being curious and keep being positive forces of change in your communities cause that’s what we’re about.
A massive thank you to Alberto for his time and for the fun and inspiring conversation. You can find Alberto’s official book club account on Instagram: @RosendeReads, make sure to give it a follow and stay tuned for all the latest news about the book club!
