Melville House Books

It’s an annual event, but this year the “readathon” in Madrid of Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes has been bolstered by the general “Quixote Madness” sweeping Spain as the country celebrates the 400th anniversary of the book’s publication. As a Reuters wire story by Estelle Shirbon reports, not only did hundreds of Spaniards including Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero show up for the “non-stop relay reading of the book” at the venerable Ciculo de Bellas arts center, but also “enthusiasts from as far afield as Sri Lanka, Equatorial Guinea in West Africa and Latin American countries” joined in via live video links. “Some participants read in other languages than Spanish to emphasize the universal appeal of Don Quixote. Excerpts were read in Latin, Arabic, Hebrew and Greek as well as 18 languages spoken in the European Union. Blind readers used editions in braille to take part.” And for those who couldn’t get to the arts center, “state radio broadcast every few minutes excerpts of the book read by luminaries ranging from King Juan Carlos to Colombian Nobel prize-winning writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez.”

• RELATED: As a Guardian story by Stuart Jeffries reports, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is handing out a million copies of the book for free in public squares “for the improvement of its citizens.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.