Alis Marić is now looking to get the car industry interested in supporting culture.
Almost 160,000 loyal fans regularly visit one of the most popular Facebook profiles in Croatia and the region, and all of them are motivated by one common passion – their love of a good book. The author of the Facebook profile Čitaj knjigu (Read a Book) and the blog of the same name Alis Marić has managed to do something almost unbelievable – return dignity to books and make them again an attractive product all the while promoting reading as an everyday ritual on her blog. Her personal lifestyle includes reading at least one book a week, and her recommendations, she points out, come directly from the heart without the need to consider the literary or artistic value of it, because every book is different, same as human beings, reports Hotspots on July 21, 2016.
With its numerous possibilities, Internet emerged as a perfect platform for promoting and recommending books. It has also brought different possibilities to Alis for cooperation with other book fans that further evolved into a number of projects, some of which have already been implemented while others are at the planning stage. For instance, there are plans for tours and visits to destinations of some of the famous literary masterpieces. In the meantime, the project that involved book points at hospitals and the other one that pairs good books with good wines have already been realized. In short, for this youthful and energetic woman, a mother of three adult children, her fifties turned out to be an extremely exciting and productive period of her life.
For over two decades Alis has worked for major international companies, but when she turned 50 she was out of work because of the problems her employer at the time, Dioki, was facing. And she, obviously, decided to turn over a new page. “I decided to follow my heart and to do something I really love”, she says.
Today, despite all the attention of the media and her cooperation with big brands, there is one thing she is yet to accomplish. “I would like to get a car that I would use to promote books and to go to all destinations related to the promotion of books and my project. Major car dealers would thus show that they recognize culture as a potentially lucrative product that they should not shy away from and give books their rightful place on the list of priorities, right after football, celebrities, and models. Culture as a whole has been ignored by sponsors, which is quite an oversight if one takes into account the number of people who follow my Facebook page, most of whom are very well educated”, Alis concludes.
