A Revolutionary Reading Plan

So Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is giving away free books to his citizens. Classic Novels for Nothing is part of his Revolutionary Reading Plan, along with his own speeches, The Communist Manifesto and Les Miserables. He deploys book squadrons to encourage reading in public squares, parks and transport. Books are colour coded: red for autobiography (to motivate); green for re-symbolisation (dismantling false and assembling true symbols); orange for community building and black for combat, in this case against imperialism.

The Bible tells of a whole nation being summoned to a revolutionary reading plan. A lost but revolutionary book was discovered, and the people who were recently returned from exile were summoned to the central square in Jerusalem to hear it read aloud day after day. This was headed up by Ezra. The Book (which comprised the first five books of the Christian Bible) explained a Way of Life upon which a people should base their lives if they wanted well-being.

When people contact us to say that they have had enough of our hedonistic western lifestyle, and that they would like to learn about alternative, holistic models, such as the Celtic, we provide them with a revolutionary reading list. You can download it from this web site.