A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.
- Mark Twain
The most celebrated American humorist of all time has assured his place in the 21st century. Mark Twain's autobiography, shut inside a vault for 100 years since his death in 1910, will finally be published.* (AP) CBS News
About one in seven people cannot read.
Of the six people that can read, many choose not to.
I always think that people who don't like to read were probably forced to read books they didn't enjoy in school. It was true for me. I dreaded required reading; books being assigned to us that were of no interest to me. And truth be told, I would usually just skim through them enough to be able to pass the assignment. Luckily for me, English was one of my best classes so it worked.
Just out of high school, however, everything changed. I took a job that required commuting for an hour and a half a day. I chose to ride the bus to save on gas and parking costs but found the downtime excruciatingly boring. While buying my lunch at a nearby 7-11 one day, I noticed a small, spin rack of paperbacks for sale. I picked one up thinking it was a way I could pass the time on the commute home. I read all the way home that day. I read after dinner until I fell asleep. I read all the way to work the next morning, read on my lunch break, and all the way back home. I could not put the book down. I was hooked. To this day I credit that novel and its author, Danielle Steele, for my love of reading.
The funny part of why I picked up that book, on that day....besides being driven by boredom....the title character shared my name.
"Apart from giving us the basic information about the world around us, reading provides us with the food for thought. It encourages us to think. It increases our hunger for knowledge and our thirst to learn more." - Manali Oak
*Mark Twain's autobiography is being sold in three volumes and can be ordered on Amazon.com
What book will you read next?
No comments:
Post a Comment