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Love Of Reading
Reading is something we learn to do from an early stage in life. Hopefully, our parents have passed onto us that pleasure of opening up a new book, waiting to discover all manner of mysteries, hopes, fears, joys, of new adventures to be had, even if we are adults by now:-) Let’s see why we love reading.
For me, reading was extra special since I had a lot of difficulty learning to read. The black symbols on the white page seemed overwhelming and alien to me. I wanted to understand them but no matter how much I tried I could not.
Then…after a LOT of persistence, they finally made sense…and then I was using my parent’s library tickets to extend the number of books I could borrow as a five-year-old! I loved books, libraries, the row upon row of bookshelves, the silence in those days at the libraries.
Books and Love of Reading
The smell of leather books was wonderful, opening a new children’s book and seeing all the pretty pictures, some of which I could immediately understand now! I even loved the sound of the library stamper as it stamped when the books were due back!
From there, at primary school, I quickly went through the reading classes from beginner to advanced, almost as if to make up for my initial challenges in learning to read. During primary school I was soon onto the classics, having read most of the great British literature classics by the time I was 10 or 11 years of age. A big challenge and joy was reading the 3 tomes of Lord of the Rings by the age of 11 years.
I would read secretly at night my Wilbur Smith adventures in Africa stories when I often could not sleep with my overstimulated mind. I would then drift off into a deep sleep dreaming of tigers, crossing rivers with deadly creatures, and then relieved to wake up in my cozy bed.
Also, I loved where any book could take you in your mind, in your imagination. Whenever I had a nightmare, books again would be my friend, soothing and easing me back to a deep sleep.
So that was then. Over the years my love of books and reading has even led me to qualify as a Librarian, managing books, and now indirectly to wanting to teach English as a second language, passing on my passion for both English and reading!
What does the love of reading mean?
You see my love of books is not just about the physicality of them. It does not stop at their texture, their look and feel but the content within. They represent the words, the depictions of faraway events, of feats that I would never dare to carry out, of romances that seem far-fetched but ideal.
The beauty, scope, and semantics of the English language still hold me in awe. It seems no other form of media can depict so accurately human emotions, a dramatic landscape, or the complexity of social interactions in society as some of those literature classics!
In the same manner, no other form of entertainment can instill such hope, even in situations of hopelessness and despair as reading can. Somehow in books, optimism and a way out are possible, there is no finite ending or so it seems. I also find that as I solve the main character’s dilemmas all my everyday cares and worries disappear completely. It is like having a massage, a mental and physical massage!
Yes, reading takes me to places that ordinary life cannot and does not take me, in a mere second. I can find myself lost in the minds of the characters. Also, I have empathy with the characters as they face untold challenges and adventures, ones that I help them try and solve with my very imaginative mind, now a budding writer myself!
What Does Reading Challenge?
I have even found that reading about the challenges of a particular resilient character in a favorite book has made me more resilient in life and better able to cope with adversity. No other media format does this so well as reading a paragraph of the main character determined to persist in life no matter what the odds or the outcome!
Why I love reading is that when you read just a chapter or two, you feel you have been reading for a whole night. Unlike television and movies, you create the context, the colors that are in “your movie”.
You choose the texture, the sounds, the atmosphere, and the dynamics between the main characters. You decide how they react to one another. Also, you decide what each character is thinking beyond the stated dialogue in the text.
Yes, there is something incredibly rich and multi-layered about the process of reading a book. Your mind wrestles with the key themes, associating events and making up your theories. It gets the old grey matter working hard but seemingly effortlessly and oh-so joyfully!
Teachings from books
Books can also teach you things, and practical skills to try out in real life. Books can help you see things from a different angle. They can help you make sense of things you have done previously in life. Many authors base their books on their own life experiences and so often this overlaps with the readers.
The reader experiences that wonderful, aha moment. That is where they realize what was happening to them in some past event. Or why the other person acted or reacted that way to them. In this manner, it can be incredibly cathartic, soothing, and reassuring for a person. It helps to see things from either an empathic perspective or an opposite (other mind perspective).
I know how much I love being in the middle of a big, thick volume of a book given that the moment I finish it I seek out my next tome. I am ready to get immersed into a new set of experiences, emotions, and challenges in my head.
Yes, reading is something I can strongly recommend to everyone. It helps impress others’ experiences of life and gives empathy to your own. Also, it shows new ways of expressing yourself to others understanding nuances of communication and emotions. It shows the full range of human experience all in your two hands, in the comfort of your sofa:-)
Happy Reading!
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