What do you people read? What is it that tickles your fancy and makes you wish days were long and nights yet longer? In short, what makes a reader cli—well, grow cross-eyed and drop drooling onto dog-eared, creased pages.
I’ve often heard said: “No, I don’t read that. I like adventure and comedy, perhaps some romance, but I don’t read politics or tragedy.” Or the other way around, someone would say: “You read romance? That’s so childish. One should read truly intellectually stimulating books. For example, did you hear of (blah-blah-blah)? It’s non-fiction. Literature of the wise, if you ask me.”
Well, I ask myself, how does a person truly become wise if he/she insists on keeping their sphere narrow, on always being inside the box?
When I started reading, I couldn’t digest anything more than short, and I mean really short, narratives. I didn’t have the patience for anything else. Then a senior (not that old, I think in retrospect) told me that I was a kid and of course I couldn’t handle big books—she read Enid Blyton compilations. Suffice to say, I didn’t take that well. Always I’d had an itch to transform and grow, picking bits and pieces that I liked from others’ personalities and incorporating them into my own. And I didn’t like the thought that though I read, I didn’t look scholarly enough because I didn’t read a big book.
From there came a time when I was told I was a child since I didn’t read novels because of course novels were what adults read. I started reading longer books, again Enid Blyton—I was something of a fan; it crushed me when I found out she had died. I scoured the school’s library for her books until, one day, it was made apparent to me that there weren’t anymore. I’d read them all.
I thought, why not go further? Why stick with a single writer? And I tried my first novel thicker than the width of a thumb. A friend lent me Warriors by Enid Hunter. It was those cats that made me realize good little children fighting criminals weren’t the extent of literary nuances. There was a fountain out there, a crushing world of words and ideas, of dragons, queens, and even swashbuckling newsmen in Jacqueline Susann’s camera world. It was all there, and I could take it if only I stepped out.
Now, ten years later with me a little wiser, it makes me uncomfortable when asked, “What do you read?” Because I read everything. I read the instructions on the back of shampoo bottles (lather, rinse, repeat if necessary), I read the leaflets inside medicine boxes (consult your doctor), and I read titles as far ranging and different as The Book of Kings and The Goose Girl. I can tell you the parts of a medieval dueling sword while at the same time explaining how protons are made of quarks while gluons hold the nucleus of atoms together.
What have I learned through it all? Never ever hold yourself to a single thing. Read everything. Read adventure, mystery, politics, science. Read what makes your blood sings with the roar of speeding adrenaline and also what makes you want to put your head through a wall. Wise men and women have lived and died before us, leaving their life’s work so that we might be better than they were. We owe it to them. We owe it to us.
Read, because only YOU are responsible for your ignorance.
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Lol, sounds very recognizable. I read just about anything too (including instructions on shampoo bottles).
I used to read only horror stories (big fan of the old work of Stephen King), but a couple of years ago, someone gave me a tip about a series of books: 'Earth's Children' by Jean M. Auel. This person mentioned it was a series of prehistorical fiction novels, which turned me off completely.
But hearing other people's opinions, I got curious. So I decided to give it a try - although prehistorical fiction is (was) not really my cup of tea.
I started reading 'The Clan of the Cave Bear', and before I was even halfway through, I knew that it had been such a mistake to get turned off initially. I read all 5 first books in no time, then had to wait 10 years for number 6 to be published. Read it, and fell completely in love again, so I started over, lol.
That taught me that I shouldn't judge a book by its cover (or theme). Ever since, I've been more open-minded about potentially good books.
It would have been such a shame if I had missed out on this awesome series, only because I had prejudice.
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By the way, I noticed you didn't source your image in this post. It's pretty important to do so every time
If you waited 10 years for a book and weren't disappointed, I am wondering how absolutely brilliant it must have been. Perhaps I will give it a try.
I've always been able to read a lot of different content, but the hardest for me to digest is politically inclined work, like the Book of Kings. It was so difficult to get through but I can totally say that, along with moments where I struggled to understand what was happening, there were parts were I honestly enjoyed myself and learned a ton.
It's all helpful in the end, I believe. All of it, no matter how dry.
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True, but I do like to enjoy myself when reading :0)
Tried the Christian Bible once, but got lost after chapter 1 or so.
I almost always read fiction, just because I want to have fun. One of the few non-fiction books that turned my world upside down was 'The Healing Power Of Illness' by Thorwald Dethlefsen & Rudiger Dahlke.
It's been almost 20 years ago that I read it, but it completely changed my point of view on things, on life. Review
It was dry and complicated sometimes, but I struggled my way through and it opened a whole new world. I love it when a book can do that :0)
I didn't really wait, lol. The 5th book was published in 2002. That's about the time that I read the entire series. I thought the story had been told.
But then she published book number 6 in 2011...It was a big surprise.
And I could pick up just like that again. It felt like not even a year had passed since I read the other ones.
(My girlfriend read all 6 one after another, and she says that the 6th book repeats a lot of the story that was told in the earlier books. Probably the reason why I could pick up the story again s quickly)