Brazil celebrates National Book Day on October 29. The date honors the founding of the National Library of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, established when the Portuguese Royal Library was moved to the colony in 1810.
Our Book Day Campaign
We have kicked off our Book Day campaign. In the first stage, we held an internal vote to choose a new name for our library. We set up ballot boxes around the company and collected 56 suggestions, and the management team shortlisted the 5 names that best fit our project. The poll will decide the name of our new reading space, so vote for your favorite!
Poll Winners
Congratulations to everyone who took part in our National Book Day event. Your effort was amazing, and we hope we can always count on everyone's involvement.
Tiago Gomes took second place with 451 votes for his suggestion “Laboratory of Knowledge,” while Paula Fernanda proposed “Electroplating the Imagination” and won with 775 votes.
4 big benefits of reading.
Reading is great for your brain and your studies, and your intelligence will thank you.
1. It improves brain function
Countless studies show that reading strengthens neural connections and helps the brain work better. Think of it as a workout for your mind! A study from Emory University in the US also found that reading affects our brain as if we had actually lived through the events we are reading about.
Another US study found that cognitive decline in old age can be reduced by about 30% when people keep up a reading habit, and that reading also helps protect against diseases such as Alzheimer's. Reading also makes the brain more receptive to language, which makes it easier to learn a new language, for example.
2. It sparks creativity
You get smarter when you read a lot, and your writing and vocabulary improve too. You already knew that. Creativity is another skill that grows: when we read a novel, for example, imagining the setting where the story unfolds and picturing the characters leads us to build a whole other world inside our heads.
The best approach is to look for books set in a time very different from ours, such as a 19th century English classic, or in a literally different world. Try the book versions of fantasy hits like Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. Your mind is sure to travel, and you will come back to reality feeling as if you had actually visited another planet.
3. It builds critical thinking
Why is the world the way it is? Why do you think the way you do? Questions like these come up when you start questioning life and society, in other words, when you start developing critical thinking. The most remarkable thing about literature is that, by introducing us to different realities and eras, it prompts reflections we might never have if we stayed stuck in our daily lives and fixed routines. Reading opens your mind, and that can make you a better person. That is probably also because of the next and final item.
4. It fosters empathy
Empathy is in short supply in the world. Basically, it means understanding another person and connecting with them emotionally. A study published in Psychology Today showed that reading has exactly this effect: it increases our capacity for empathy. The reason is fairly obvious. When we read, we connect with someone else's reality (even a fictional one) and can understand what it is like to be that person. We literally know what it means to walk in their shoes and what kind of feelings they have, which may be very different from our own.
Another study may sound more familiar to you, reader: research carried out in Italy showed that young people who read Harry Potter are less prejudiced and more likely to empathize with social minorities, such as gay people, Black people and immigrants. Why? Because of the link between Harry's fight against prejudice toward wizards born to “Muggles” and marginalized groups in real life.
Still have any doubt that reading is wonderful?