Tietokirja.fi (“Nonfiction.Finland”) has become Finland’s most interesting book festival, especially for those who don’t care for the usual book-fair fuss. Each year, the program is more varied and offers a great range of speakers. On both Wednesday and Thursday last week, concurrent sessions were full; in fact, not everyone who wanted to attend could get in.
My favorites from the opening ceremony were MP Timo Harakka and historian Teemu Keskisarja. Harakka cleverly described three vibrant types of non-fiction books: selfies (like celebrity “all about me” books), pamphlets, and historical drafts. Keskisarja, in turn, promised to give an energetic rant, railing about the ”globalization rut” of Finnish universities as well as the Internet’s virtual reality. “Other than that,” he said as he wound down, “I think that the Internet should be destroyed”.
One of the most interesting panels dealt with freedom of speech. Journalist Elina Grundström brought up some alarming developments. According to her, arrests of journalists in Europe have quadrupled over the last two quarters, and fewer parties are defending traditional freedom of speech. Further, in many countries social media has been harnessed as a tool for state propaganda.
In a humorous dialogue, Pekka Seppänen and Helena Åhman critiqued management books. There’s always some management style leading the business-fashion parade. Seppänen and Åhman maintain that management should choose its approach based on the specific situation, not by what all the other managers are doing. We language people, of course, were impressed by Seppänen’s wordplay like: “Strategy needs a sound footing because it’s hard to grasp”.