The literary fine

This article is published in number 38 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until 21 September 2021

This fine is paid by reading, folks! If you return a book late to the library, and the card has been disabled, you can reactivate it by dedicating yourself to a reading session. An hour is worth five dollars. Seeing a movie, even if it’s based on a book, or listening to music doesn’t count. Graphic novels, comics, newspapers, even in digital format, yes.

Audiobooks are fine too. The experiment is not recent (it started four years ago), but the beauty is that it continues to work: 13,000 boys and girls accounts restored and 50,000 reading sessions in Los Angeles County libraries.

This curious “literary fine” could also be taken as a model in other contexts: starting with the school one. And who knows that the fined on duty may not find that reading is not so bad. For sure, it’s not torture. Ask for confirmation from an avid Los Angeles County library-goer: a special kid born a hundred years ago and in love with books.

Despite the global fame he had achieved, he continued to frequent the neighborhood library which he had the card for as a teenager. He would pass by to borrow a volume, to stop and talk to the very young readers, to carve out an hour of writing in silence (his most famous novel, Fahrenheit 451, was born on a rented typewriter in the basement of the library University of Los Angeles). Until the end, he promoted fundraisers for libraries and made generous donations himself. Because – he said – libraries raised me.

And also: I believe more in libraries than in schools and universities. And: if you can read, you can decide. Finally: make your imagination the center of your life. His name was Ray Bradbury.

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