“What are you reading” founder Skaistė – about collecting, instagramming and a letter to S. Parulski | Culture

S. Šaumanaitė is a communication specialist, the founder of Instagram “What are you reading”, which currently has about 5 thousand followers. followers. As a cultural profile, that’s a lot. On her account, she interviews random passers-by who… read books!

We met with the interviewer in the cafe of the “Mint Vinetu” bookstore, during which we talked about the challenges of cultural communication, studies and Sigitas Parulskis, who was S. Šaumanaitė’s favorite author as a teenager.

– Skaist, are you a book student?

– No, I wouldn’t say. I don’t read enough in a year to consider myself a scholar. I would prefer it if people called me a bookie, because I like to collect books. I hunt for older editions and am interested in the book market.

– What interesting do you have in your collection?

– Quite by accident, I collected quite a solid collection of publications by the writer of Lithuanian origin, Icchok Mero. I have an autographed copy of his popular novel “Lygiosios drunka akimirkus”, “Sara” published in exile with a dedication to Judith Vaičiūnaita and another novel with a dedication to the editor Feliks. In short, everything related to I. Meru interests me.

Lukas Balandis/BNS photo/Skaistė Šaumanaitė

– Does he impress you as a writer?

– Yes, “Equal Lasts a Moment” is probably one of my favorite Lithuanian prose books.

– You are studying Lithuanian philology. Why did you choose this particular profession?

– I was very good at Lithuanian at school, and books always attracted me. However, I have a longer story to explain that (laughs). As a teenager, I wouldn’t say fanatically, but I really read a lot of S. Parulski’s books. I had them all stocked up. I once wrote him a letter, to which I received a very angry reply: “You lack literary sophistication.” Then I thought “I’ll show you again” and enrolled in Lithuanian philology (laughs).

– And what is “literary sophistication”?

– You should probably ask S. Parulskis! (laughs).

– What are your favorite subjects of Lithuanian studies?

– Literary. I will not list the subjects, but I would like to mention a few teachers. I especially liked the lectures of Žana Raškevičiūtė-Andriukoniė, Pauliaus V. Subačiaus, Brigita Speičytė, Mindaugas Kvietkauskas, Neringa Klišienė, Audinga Peluritytė-Tikuišienė, Vilias Bartnink and Jonas Dagis.

– And what was your childhood like? Did you grow up among books?

– It is very difficult to say. Yes, there were them at home, my mother read in English every evening, but no one specifically recommended reading to me. While my brothers were having fun with cars, I spent a lot of time in libraries. I basically read everything in order, from Disney princess books to vampire books.

– You must have read the famous “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer…

– Indeed, there was no selection of books. My mother was probably horrified by my choices, because I also had to read about the afterlife (laughs). However, my favorite childhood book was Astrid Lindgren’s Ronja the Robber’s Daughter.

– Why do you talk to people on the street? How did this idea come about?

– It was quite a difficult summer in Nida, during which I worked in a cafe and did not know what to do with my life. It was such a difficult stage that I thought I needed to realize myself somehow. Just in Nida, I saw a lot of people reading and I was very curious to ask what they were reading. I remember I kept shaking my head trying to see the title of the novel and one of the readers just caught me and laughed. That’s when the idea arose, why not talk to them directly.

– What is the most difficult thing about interviewing people?

– Maybe a language barrier. I don’t always talk to people who speak Lithuanian or English.

– What is the most memorable interlocutor you’ve had?

– Probably Aušrinė, whom I unexpectedly met at Mint Vinetu. I used to upload content in video format, so I asked her why she reads at all, what literature gives her. I got such a serious and nice answer! “This is a very big question,” she replied. – I read because one life is very short and I want to get to know others and other ways of thinking and another language.”

Later we corresponded and still maintain friendly relations. When she returns from Edinburgh, where she is studying, we meet.

– Are there generally many literary-minded people in your environment?

– Really so. My friends and I talk a lot about books and other reading. This is probably the biggest part of the conversation.

– Where are your ambitions in curating “What are you reading”? How far can a cultural account go?

– I think I have already reached most of the followers. As for the goal, it has long been about making reading a natural part of our culture. I’m not sure if this is a consequence of “What are you reading here”, but compared to two years ago, when I first started my activity, I didn’t see so many people reading in public spaces: I had to look for them in specific places, like Bernardinai Garden or Mint Vinetu.

– Does uploading content to Instagram, in your opinion, not diminish the reading itself? Sometimes quite sharp criticism can be heard from older cultists bookstagramamsbecause this is a superficial access to literature.

– I do not agree with this point of view. However, Instagram accounts are personal, so people can post whatever they want there. I see more positives than negatives in this process. I myself would be interested in doing research on what people actually read and recommend to others. After all, I often talk to people who do not share their readings on social networks.

– Finding out what someone else is reading is quite intimate. Perhaps what we post on Instagram is often different from what we actually read sometimes. However, you yourself are a communication specialist at the Lithuanian Publishers Association (LLA), working with social networks. What challenges do you face?

– I really like to communicate on the subject of books. Before I got a job at LLA, I didn’t always learn about all the current literary events: award-winning books, events, premieres. Also, very few people know about LLA and its activities, so I feel a kind of mission to popularize this organization.

– Cultural communication is not so grateful. This is not a communication about food items or travel. So being a cultural opinion maker is quite different from being an “influencer” of luxury life. What do you think are the biggest challenges of cultural communication today?

– Probably the fact that we don’t sell anything. When you give some information, the person does not necessarily need it. When you show a product, people want to try it, taste it, experience it. Sure, you can sell a book, but most people who read have stacks of them that they don’t move year after year.

Among other things, cultural opinion makers have a fairly narrow audience. Quite different from the ones talking about the food that everyone eats.

– However, if you look at foreign countries bookstagramus, hundreds of thousands of followers can be seen. And the Lithuanian Book Lady has almost 36 thousand. readers. Of course, you can’t compare it to the Kardashian family, which has billions of followers.

– The Lithuanian audience is even narrower. Bookstagrameriai mostly communicates abroad in English, which is currently the world’s language lingua franca.

– Is it possible to achieve such notoriety as, say, K. Meschino by communicating about culture? Would you dream of scaling your account like this?

– I don’t know, time will tell (smiles). That would be very welcome and great. And I myself would not want the kind of popularity that K. Meschino has. I am glad that no one recognizes me on the street and I can calmly approach a person who is reading, who at first has no idea what I want from him. Underground is pleasant to me in every sense.

Lukas Balandis/BNS photo/Skaistė Šaumanaitė

– In an interview with Liepa Svirskaite, you said that you are interested in “selling books, seeing how people collect them, finding readers for them”. What is the recipe for selling a book?

– I said this phrase when I was still working at the “Black Dog” bookstore, so now I don’t sell books. However, in my view, they can be sold through aesthetics. I miss that in the communication of modern publishing houses. Sometimes publishing houses upload pictures of books with a plain background made by an illustrator on their social networks, or write “Promotion” or “New” in giant red letters. A huge inspiration for me is the communication of the Rara label on social networks, of course, I never asked how they are doing. But they are characterized by individuality – they themselves describe books, take photos, etc