Prologue

NATURALLY, THERE IS NO END OF BOOKS
The Adventure of Reading

”Those were different youths, different childhoods!” you say with a sigh watching the picture. ”There used to be a true adventure of reading. Like here: secretly, during the night, under the covers, with a flashlight, immense spaces and worlds opened up before us through the book. We would go to sleep in infinitely distant lands, exciting and still unknown, and wake up thrilled, with a conspiratorial smile, impatient to see the following night, if we manage to find a new flashlight, what actually happened at the end. These kids today, hm, they know nothing! They have so many requisites and toys, yet they don’t even know how to play! They just hammer the keyboards, waste their time on Facebook, their language is reduced to about thirty deformed expressions! Terrible!”
You have forgotten, of course, that almost the same words were spoken to you and about you by your fathers and grandfathers, just like today’s children will preach, with a worried look on their face and theatrically clearing their throats, to their children and grandchildren. Convinced that there is no end of reading and that only forms and technologies of presenting text can change, the new National Review is here, before us. Along with all we have joyfully got each other used to, this time, in the eve of another Belgrade Book Fair, we will give special attention to books and writers.
Yes, you have immediately noticed, we have a fresh new look. We have a new heading, both in the Serbian and the English version. It was made based on letters used on the famous Trajan’s Table in Djerdap, enlisted among the most beautiful ever created. The concept and design of the cover page are also new. The presence of another important hand in our team is obvious and yet to be noticed: Jovan Željko Rajačić, one of the most important Serbian designers and calligraphers today has joined us, and we hereby welcome him.