To see what others are reading is always fascinating, it is like peering through a keyhole. To glimpse even a little into their literary preferences is looking into their minds and souls, it's revealing. From poetry and fiction to history and philosophy, the choices of others carry something for everyone.
In these days of rush, festive overindulgence, and the clamour of everyday life, a book remains a gift that resists time, insisting on pausing it. This holiday season, Politis to the point asks its collaborators, people who live through words, academics, journalists, radio producers, to speak of books as gifts. And they all agree: a book is the epitome of a meaningful present, it carries thought, care, and the joy of discovery. It offers a world, opens an experience, and leaves a moment that lingers.
For the award-winning Cypriot writer Nasia Dionysiou, a book creates entirely new universes from scratch, uncovers beauty in the most unlikely places, and redefines what is essential.
“As a gift,” she says, “a book takes me back to my childhood, to when stories opened pathways to other worlds.” This is why she loves giving books, particularly to children, offering them the same chance to explore, imagine, and travel.
The Book as a Gift
“The book as a gift takes me back to my childhood and adolescence, because it was the means through which I came to know and absorb other worlds, other ways, other selves. That is why I love giving books, especially to children.”
While newspapers fade, the book gains ground. What does it offer us?
“Books create new universes from scratch and redefine what is important and essential,” Dionysiou explains. “They give rise to questions where everything seems simple, freedom beyond conventional interpretations and representations, beauty in the most hidden corners, and a time that flows slowly and consciously, yet expands to encompass many moments and many stories, beyond the breathless present and the flattening sweep of History".
The festive season has unfolded and the writer reflects on the books she is currently immersing herself in. She has recently begun reading Robert Penn Warren’s novel A Place to Come Back To (Polis Editions) and George Steiner’s essay Silence and the Poet (Erasmus Editions). Once these are finished, Jenny Erpenbeck’s novel Playing with Words (Kastaniotis Editions) awaits her.
The latest book she received as a gift came from another Cyprus author. “One of my dearest friends, Anna Maragou, gifted me her three-volume work Walking in the Kingdom of Salamis (To Rodakio Editions), with photographs by Petros Fiakkas. It vividly and experientially traces the uninterrupted history of the Famagusta region, from the Bronze Age to today.”
Nasia Dionysiou was born and lives in Nicosia, working at the Office of the Commissioner of Administration and the Protection of Human Rights.
She has written the novella Μη γράφετε Αρθούρος (Do Not Write, Arthur, Polis, 2025), the novella Τι είναι ένας κάμπος (What Is a Plain, Polis, 2021), which received the Greek State Prize for Novella and has been translated into French, Ukrainian, and Serbian, and the short story collection Περιττή ομορφιά (Superfluous Beauty, To Rodakio, 2017), awarded the Cyprus State Prize for Short Story/Novella and translated into Serbian.