Boring State-Sponsored Books

If you live in Venezuela and want to buy a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, you'd better have some patience and a well-padded savings account. A bookstore in Caracas has only one lonely copy on sale for $132. In a country where the per capita income is only around $8,000 per year, a bootlegged DVD might be the better way to go.

Harry Potter is just one victim of Venezuela President Hugo Chavez's Revolutionary Reading Plan, in which the socialist leader seeks to promote reading countrywide. Normally, that would be a good thing. But in Venezuela, the state-approved reading list is enough to make most people wish they were illiterate. Among the titles are such page-turners as The Culture of Petroleum, Some Games of Children of Venezuela, State Terrorism in Colombia, The Latin American Protest Lyrics And Liberation Theology Of Juan Guerrero, and The Imperialist Fallacy of Human Rights. The only bright spot on the list is Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.

Still awake?

Chavez has made his reading list more appealing to book lovers through the simple tactic of making other titles unavailable. This is accomplished not by outright censorship, but by stultifying bureaucracy that makes it almost impossible for booksellers to import popular titles. A government bureaucrat (not a librarian, bookstore owner or -- God forbid -- a capitalist with a sense of what might sell well) reviews applications for overseas book titles and decides yes or no based on whether the book could be produced domestically. Even those getting a green light are ordered in tiny volumes. Only a few hundred copies of Rhonda Byrne's bestseller The Secret made it across the border even though a self help book about how to enjoy life could be expected to sell hundreds of thousands in a place like Venezuela.

The result is astronomically high prices for popular books. In contrast, many of Chavez's approved books are either given away or are sold for less than $2. Those who still aren't convinced that Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto or the collected speeches of Chavez himself are better ways to while away a few hours than The Time Traveler's Wife or Julia and Julia may change their minds after being cornered by roving "book squadrons." Another aspect of the Revolutionary Reading Plan, these literary hit teams descend on parks and plazas like fanatical book clubs, cajoling bystanders to participate in readings and discussions of state-approved works. Book squadron members wear color-coded shirts based on the genre they're force-reading to the masses. Red shirts are for autobiographies; black shirts are for works devoted to "military resistance."

Chavez's reading-promotion plan might find some momentum among those who will soon have a lot of time on their hands, the country's beleaguered book sellers themselves. In an open letter, the president of Venezuela's Chamber of Books warned that the government's policy related to importing books threatens to put some 400-500 book stores out of business. Together, these stores employ around 35,000 people, directly and indirectly.

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Photo: Official photo of Chavez

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