The Pleasure of Reading
I love books! I love to read anything I can get my hands on, fiction, non-fiction, instruction manuals, cereal boxes and even old envelopes. Yes, I’m a read-a-holic and a lifelong learner. When I discovered the picture that I started this post with, I smiled and knew I had to share it. How many cold and rainy afternoons have I spent with a cup of herbal tea, curled up in bed with a giant stack of pillows and lost in another world? Too many to count.
Nowadays, with all the new goals, and especially, with our animals to take care of and a new book to promote, my reading time is severely limited. But I treasure every opportunity I have to escape into a new world, even if it is late at night, reading with a clip-on book lamp, with puppy dogs and hubby sleeping soundly.
As an avid reader, I find it sad to remember that there are so many adults who are illiterate. So naturally, I applaud any adult literacy programs I learn about. I wish everyone could share the pleasure of learning about new worlds or being engrossed in spine-tingling story-lines.
What came as a bigger shock to me was learning that many people can read, but choose not to.
How can anyone see reading as drudgery?
Well, it appears that the love of, or avoidance of, reading begins early in life.
I can’t tell you how many times my mother came into my bedroom, long after bedtime, and turned-off the lights, insisting that I put my book away. As she discovered afterwards that I simply strained my eyes by reading by streetlight, she started confiscating my book.
It was at this age, that I learned to always have two or three books “going”, meaning I was engrossed in two or three story-lines simultaneously. If Mother took the book I was reading, I simply waited a few moments and pulled a back-up book out from under the mattress and re-immersed myself in that scenario (by street lamp).
This is a habit I’ve continued to this day, not that my mother (or my husband) would ever take a book from me now. But I have books and blank notepads that I carry in my purse, keep in my cars, in the bathroom, and stack up next to my bed. I have cookbooks in the kitchen.
Psychiatrists or psychologists would probably have a field day with what I’ve just confessed, so let me assure you that I am well-capable of enjoying a picnic without books. I’ve been known to lie on a blanket by the river and watch the clouds go by. In fact, my husband and I have spent many an enjoyable hour making-up and naming imaginary figures that we identify as the clouds move and reshape. Psychiatrists might say that BOTH Don and I are nuts, but cloud-naming is a fun and leisurely pastime that I highly recommend if you can’t be reading. Hah!
As we start revamping public education in the USA, we need to implement programs that not only teach children to read, but to love reading and learning.
Brennan
