The books in this world are innumerable. Some are written on a whim just to make extra cash to survive a frigid, bitter winter season. Others are commissioned sans passion on part of the writer. Still some are knowledgeable about this or that.

There are so many varieties to this world of reading and the purpose behind three hundred (give or take) pages of paper with black words printed across each leaflet.

There are so many varieties of readers in this world and the purpose behind selecting one of the hardcover, paperback, leather bound, or electronically delivered treasures and delving into the world it has to offer.

Some select a book and skim for necessities (often for classes). Others wish to be distracted from the multitude of cares this world has to offer and be enveloped into a welcoming world of fiction. A few here and there might prefer a book to wind down after a long day rather than the television. And then there are those who pick up one of these treasures as if it was their only child and focus on every word within the pages and ride upon the waves of story, character, truth, and knowledge on an internal and external quest to learn.

This last one--this last one is the one we should all strive for as readers, I think. We should simultaneously be able to enjoy reading and learn from reading. A good book will allow us to accomplish these desires of being entertained while gaining something to apply to our life.

The best readers are those who do not take a book for granted but drink in every word and search for the nuggets of wisdom and diamonds buried in the rough. The best readers are those who let books aid in shaping them into better people.

The best books are the ones that remain applicable over decades, over centuries and continue to touch readers for even years after a reader has finished the book. The best books teach us that there is more to life and inspire us to go forth into life and discover what exactly that is.

These are those books that are timeless and beautiful. They are full of heartbreak and triumph, famine and plenty, war and peace. They are the ones that speak of the human condition in such a clear way through experience and analogy, through images and poetry. They are the books that speak the Truth in a magnificent stringing of words to form sentences that make our hearts ache and burst and thump with enlightenment when we realize something more or new about our Creator or about us, as the created and our perspectives change and the scales fall from our eyes and our frozen over emotions begin to crack and thaw to make way for healing or passion or renewal.

But these books will just be books if we don’t go in as one ready to be taught--as one ready to be changed. They will just be black words on a previously blank page and you will be the same.