Libris: Why We Read Less and How to Train Our Minds in the Age of AI
LIBfest 2025 takes place between October 21–26 and explores how reading evolves alongside technology.
Romania Insider
· Updated · 4 min read
LIBfest 2025 takes place between October 21–26 and explores how reading evolves alongside technology.
LIBfest, the book and cultural experiences fair organized by Libris.ro returns with an edition that examines how reading habits are being transformed in a world shaped by speed, technology, and AI. Between October 21 and 26, LIBfest 2025 brings together authors and publishers in four thought-provoking dialogues about literature, education, social violence, and artificial intelligence themes that mirror the main concerns of contemporary society.
“People might read differently, more selectively, but the need to understand the world through stories remains constant. Reading doesn’t disappear; it simply evolves with us. LIBfest 2025 highlights how reading adapts to new forms of attention, learning, and connection, while preserving its essence: the ability to turn information into understanding, and emotion into motivation,” said Loredana Tudor, Marketing Manager at Libris.
Four discussion themes at LIBfest 2025: Literature as a Mirror of Society
The 2025 edition of LIBfest features four evenings of dialogue that turn reading into a lens for observing today’s world from the crisis of reading and transitional literature to femicide reflected in fiction and the role of children’s books in a technology-driven age.
The festival opens on October 21 with the debate “Why Do We Read Less? World Literature: Decline or Metamorphosis”, a conversation between Dan Pleșa, editor at Vellant, writer and cultural journalist, and Dr. Sever Gulea, psychiatrist and Libris blogger. The dialogue explores how global reading habits are changing, whether the visible decrease in reading time truly indicates a crisis — or simply a transformation in form.
“Reading is not a social process; it’s an encounter with one’s own intimacy, with one’s own thoughts. And sometimes, especially during difficult times, people avoid such encounters with themselves because the entire dynamic of life is focused either on survival or on disconnection — a cultural consumption that is less intellectual and more about entertainment,” said Dan Pleșa during his LIBfest dialogue with Dr. Sever Gulea.
The second day focuses on “Transitional Literature”, a conversation between Cătălin Ranco Pițu, military prosecutor and author of several books reinterpreting recent history, and Dr. Sever Gulea. The discussion views literature as an archive of post-communist Romanian experience a way to understand the collective traumas of a generation that moved from survival to adaptation.
