Why reading is important

The benefits of reading are not limited to 10 but the top reasons in this article are the most powerful. In terms of fiction or non-fictionthere are endless stories that can both broaden your understanding of the world or help you get through a sticking point in your life. Those who read have been known to have more finely-tuned brains than those who prefer more passive activities, so anyone hoping to improve their mind both psychologically and cognitively might want to think about taking up the habit of regular reading.

Tap here to turn on desktop notifications to get the news sent straight to you. There are abundant reasons, some of them worse than others and many of them mutually contradictory. To pass the time. To savor the existence of time.

To exercise my critical capacities. To flee from the need for rational explanations. And even the obvious reasons may not be the real ones. My motives remain obscure to me because reading is, to a certain extent, a compulsion.

As with all compulsions, its sources prefer to stay hidden. In any case, when I ask myself why I read literature, I am not really asking about motivation. I am asking what I get from it: This I am sure of. The rewards are enormous. But they too tend toward the intangible, and sometimes the inexpressible.

I have tried to express some of them here, but without any hope of being all-encompassing. Partial coverage—a flashlight shining into a dark room, briefly illuminating what sits on the rows of shelves—is all I can realistically aim for.

When it comes to literature, we are all groping in the dark, even the writer. And that is a good thing—maybe one of the best things about literature. Even the second or third or tenth time you read it, a book can surprise you, and to discover a new writer you love is like discovering a whole new country.

Some countries, like the novels of Nathanael West or J. Forster, are only the size of a small island, because their author died young or dried up early.

One kind of land mass is not better than another though they do tend to appeal to different tastesand whichever you prefer, there are always more out there. You will never reach the end. I suppose if I had to give a one-word answer to the question of why I read, that word would be pleasure.

The kind of pleasure you can get from reading is like no other in the world. People even get pleasure out of reading bad books, and I deplore this, but that is only because those books are not to my taste.

You will deplore some of the works I hold up as models in this book, and that is not only sensible, but inevitable.

That is as it should be. Reading can result in boredom or transcendence, rage or enthusiasm, depression or hilarity, empathy or con- tempt, depending on who you are and what the book is and how your life is shaping up at the moment you encounter it.

This effect will be particular to each person, and it will change over time, just as the person changes over time—and the richer and more complicated the book is, the more this will be true. I have tried, in this book, to cast a wide net in my definition of literature, looking at plays, poems, and essays as well as novels and stories.

Along with more traditional literary forms, I have included mysteries and science fiction, memoirs and journalism, the only requirement being that the book be well-written enough to last through multiple readings, not to mention multiple generations of readers. With my contemporaries, of course, I have had to guess at this: I possess no magical powers that enable me to see the literary future.

I do, however, have a time-travel machine of sorts, in the form of the literature of the past.Jan 07,  · The following is an excerpt from Wendy Lesser's Why I Read [Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $]: It’s not a question I can completely answer.

There are abundant reasons, some of them worse than. In this post, I will list out 8 reasons why reading is important. I hope you can really find out the reason why reading is so important for you, so you can get a brand new desire to explore the world of reading.

1. Expose Yourself to New Things. But the answer to why reading is important is a different one altogether.

You see, when one reads, a pact or a covenant if you will, is formed with you and the literature that is in front of you. And when you read you are effectively conveying that information to your brain in your own words. Why Reading is Important Reading is how we discover new things and how we develop a positive self-image.

The ability to read is a vital skill in . The Benefits of Reading: 5 Reasons Why You Should Read More Books 1. Expand Vocabulary Experts advise people, and most importantly students, to indulge in at least half an hour of reading a day to expose themselves to numerous styles of writing an.

Why Reading is Important Reading is how we discover new things and how we develop a positive self-image. The ability to read is a vital skill in being able to function in today's society. Reading is important because it helps to expand the mind and develops the imagination.