Words That Bring Us Closer

Hello, I am Şeyda and today I would like to tell you about Borusan Cat Book Club.

I think it would be valuable to make an introduction with this meaningful quote of Rumi, who reminds us that it is not only words, but also emotions and shared common values that bring us together and bring us closer by saying "Not only those who speak the same language, but also those who share the same emotion can get along".

I Can Not Imagine Life Without Books

Have you ever thought about the secret of that magical power that brings us together? When we feel alone in the world, when it seems to us that we are not understood or that we cannot explain what we are going through, the hero of the novel winks at us through rows of lines and says: “You are not alone”, “I am here, and I feel exactly the same as you. How precious is the existence in your imagination of a story character who shares your journey with you, isn't it?

Perhaps one of the most important legacies of human history is books and their endless world. We know that every person who has left a footprint in history has somehow stepped into the fascinating world of books. For example, we see that famous historical figures such as the Roman Emperor and wise philosopher Marcus Aurelius, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Albert Einstein had libraries of enormous size for the period they lived in, and that they put reading, research and developing different ideas into practice.

The way to understand life, the world, the universe and existence is through the magical pages of books. If you define books and reading as a passion rather than a routine hobby or a habit, and moreover, if you have Book Club friends with whom you travel together on this enjoyable journey, you are really lucky, and I consider myself lucky too.

The Story of Borusan Cat Book Club

During the pandemic, which affected the whole world and caused all of us to spend time in our homes for a long time, we decided to establish a club with Elif Şebnem, a colleague in our company at that time and a true bookworm. We dreamed that Borusan Cat members, who are book lovers, would accompany us in this club, that we would read books from different genres that we determined together, and that we would discuss these books we read in our monthly meetings, and that we would feed and enrich each other intellectually.

Borusan Cat Book Club, which we set out with the idea of socializing together during the pandemic, albeit online, has recently passed its third year. The club continues to meet every month with its members from other Borusan Group companies within and even outside Borusan Cat. I also remember with respect and gratitude our late CEO Hasan Tahsin Güven, who supported us at every stage of the club's establishment, accompanied us to our first meetings and became a permanent member of the club.

Discovering New Books and New Cultures

Since our members are very interested in reading books from different genres and nourishing themselves in this way, we have book recommendations from several different genres at each of our meetings. We choose one of these books as the book of the month by majority vote, but the other books on the agenda are definitely bought and read by our members. Since not all of our members can attend every meeting, we share the books selected together with the current participants in our WhatsApp group, and in this way, we keep the agenda constantly fresh. We also have a living spreadsheet that we created on Teams. We add the names of all the books we talk about to the spreadsheet and in this way, we have an enormous database. Our members can choose the books they want to read from this database.

Sometimes we choose our books from a valuable author who has recently passed away or received an award, so that we have the opportunity to get to know them better. For example, we read Ferhan Şensoy's "Kazancı Yokuşu" (Kazancı Slope) when we paid tribute to the esteemed artist as he passed away.

We Continue to Increase Our Number

We also have members who were not with us in the early days of the club but joined us over time. We grow day by day and continue to develop and learn together.

We also have the goal and dream of contributing to social responsibility projects with our club members in the future. In short, as Borusan Cat Book Club for a better world, we want to inspire each other, our environment and society with stories that have books at their core and heart. We invite everyone who wants to walk with us on this journey to join us again with this article.

As Amin Maalouf, one of my favorite authors, says in his novel Samarkand, "When your pain is endless, when you wish the world would go black, think of the greenery shimmering after the rain, of a child waking up from sleep.

And never stop to read, dear reader...

Şeyda Şabanoğlu

Author

Şeyda has been with Borusan Cat for about 4 years and is working as an HR Partner.

She loves to travel, study, explore new places, and read books. As a supporter of ancient Greek philosophy, she believes that philosophy is the best medicine. She enjoys visiting historic cities in different geographic regions and traveling through time. She lists reading and traveling as her main hobbies. She likes to read and learn from books, especially during her journeys. Among her plans is to climb Everest. Although she is not a cinephile, she enjoys watching films. Her favorite directors are Stanley Kubrick, Wes Anderson, and Jean-Luc Godard, and she dreams of living in the Wes Anderson universe.