Reading has always been one of my favorite activities. I wasn’t one of those kids who started reading really early in life. My parents would read to me, but I didn’t learn to read until kindergarten. It took me a couple years to get the hang of reading, but by the time I reached second grade my parents were hard-pressed to get me to put down my book.
When I was in fifth grade I was reading at a ninth grade level. By the time I reached sixth grade I had progressed to a college reading level. I read all the time: signs on the road, the backs of cereal boxes, novels, cookbooks, magazines, anything I could get my hands on. I would read on the bus on the way to school, I’d read during recess, sometimes I’d even have a book on my lap tucked under my desk during class.
I’m not quite so voracious a reader these days. Now I spend more time writing or working, but a good deal of my time is still taken up with reading.
The other day I had an interesting conversation about the value of reading. It wasn’t about whether or not we should read – that was never under debate – but rather about what kind of books we should read. Now, I read primarily fantasy – which makes sense since that’s what I write. The person with whom I was having this discussion made the decision some years ago to only read non-fiction because she felt that non-fiction books have more to offer in terms of education than fiction or poetry. I cannot agree with her.
In my opinion, no book is without value. Even bad books have something to offer. If a book is bad I will read it and consider how I would have written it differently to make it better. I also don’t believe that non-fiction books are the only books that can teach us things. Novels teach us about human nature and depending on the subject and the setting we can learn about history or about medicinal herbs or about rocket science. Novels just make reading more interesting.
What do you think? What kind of books do you like to read and why?
Thank you for reading.
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