This is the theme. Beginning point. A broad ocean of a topic.
Any and all responses welcome.
Yes, please pick up your pen, feathered quill... let your fingers slide across the plastic qwerty keyboard, mouths drop open in song, and write what you are thinking.
Books and reading, what does it mean to you?
Books for me are about learning - learning about the world, different people, different perspectives, new ideas and concepts. I believe that books expose me to much more than I could ever hope to learn and experience in the physical world outside of books in a lifetime. I also love reading because I have massive respect and appreciation for good writing - authors who are able to articulate thoughts and experiences in ways that are immediately recognisable to the reader. And that's the other thing about reading a good book - even though you read a book by yourself, the pages are filled with new characters and the author's thoughts so you're never actually alone. The whole time you're reading, you are part of another person's world - real, fictional, historical, whatever.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing I'll say about reading is that it requires you to slow down - a real luxury in today's world and something that doesn't come naturally to many of us anymore. And yet so important to do. Reading is my space to learn, reflect and dream.
Books are an escape, a chance to visit new worlds, or discover new ways of thinking about, and seeing the world around us.
ReplyDeleteOpening a book makes it possible to dive into a sea of ink that is forever changing as the pages turn.
But reading also happens in the otherwordly glow of the computer screen, especially in this 'modern' age where it isn't real unless it's online. Or maybe it's not online if it isn't real ...
And as much as I try and escape from the radiation of the electric window in front of me, at home and at work I find my self reading more and more on it.
What about talking books? Can you read a talking book?
I'll finish with an adapted quote: 'And if you gaze into the book, the book gazes also into you."*
*Apologies to Friedrich Nietzsche
...but I was going to use the diving metaphor, Pete!
ReplyDeleteThe thing I really like about reading is being immersed* in the world of the book, in the author's imagination. This happens even with non-fiction.
I think you do 'read' a talking book. And I try to physically turn the pages on my e-reader when I'm really engrossed. You forget the medium.
*I came up with a alternative watery image without even intending to.
It just occurred to me that the word 'book' could be replaced with 'travel', but the two are importantly linked and not just interchangable. Writing and journals about travel form the basis of a lot of literary stories and it is writing that helps make sense of experience. Often while travelling there is more space for reading, and reading is both mind expanding and inspiring as well as functional.
ReplyDelete