The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.
- Jane Austen
Reading is one of the greatest gifts in life. It is a gift that many people take for granted every single day. Asking a bibliophile, a person who collects or has a profound of books, why they read is like asking a person why they breathe. The answer to both is conspicuous, to live.
The most common reason people read is to escape the reality in which they are living. To answer your question, I read because I enjoy it wholeheartedly. There is no feeling in the world that could possibly compare to the weight of paper sitting in between your fingers or the smell of a yellowing, musty, old novel. Kindles and iPads will never be able to replace my books that are overflowing on every shelf I own. They can't and they never will.
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Amidst reading some of my most favorite novels I have been to the Cuckoo's Nest with McMurphy and Chief Bromden, watched Juliet fall head over heels for Romeo, seen the beautiful city of Amsterdam through the eyes of Hazel Grace Lancaster, I've grown up in Maycomb, Alabama with Jem and Scout and I have struggled right besides Ponyboy and Johnny.
The reason that so many people claim to hate reading is because they are simply reading the wrong books. Not everyone will be a fan of classic novels (Anna Karenina, 1984 and Frankenstein) and not everyone is into Sci-Fi. That is perfectly okay. What is not okay is not reading at all. Reading does so many wonderful things that are impossible to gain any other way. It drastically improves your vocabulary in a technologically advanced society where many people can't even hold a conversation anymore. The most important thing reading will do for you is granting you the ability to step into another person's life to gain a completely new perspective. American novelist, George R.R. Martin claims, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, the man who never reads lives only one.” He is right in every possible sense of the word.
Unfortunately, 1 in 4 children born in America will grow up without learning how to read. As of 2011, America is the only free-market Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development country where the current generation is less educated than the previous one. Shockingly, not enough is being done to change these statistics. This is because it all comes down on each of us individually. We have to take it upon ourselves to spread the love of literature and great books on and on to the people we meet.
My suggestion is to go out, find a Barnes and Noble, and pick a book. It can be any book about anything, sit down and start reading.Get lost in the pages and read, read, read. Read anything or everything. There will never be enough time to read everything. But there is certainly enough time to read something.
Just turn the page.
