LulightWhy I read
” I go back to the reading room, where I sink down the sofa and into the world of The Arabian Nights. Slowly, like a movie fadeout, the real world evaporates. I’m alone, inside the world of the story. My Favourite feeling in the world”
Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the shore.
I always loved reading. There were times when my love was obsessive, and I would keep a chart of the books that I read in a week. There were times when my love was fading, and it would take me a long time to finish a book. There were times when my love for reading stories was dwarfed by all the amusement that the online world has to offer.
I read books for entertainment, for pure pleasure. But I also like reading to enjoy the writing. Today I finished reading Blow Up by Cortazar …it’s my third time, and it only gets better. Some books just pass through. Others, stay with me and become part of who I am. All of them touched me in different ways…even the ones I dropped…those teach me that reading doesn’t work as a chore.
I read because of it’s benefits: it’s been proven that by reading we can reduce stress, it can help us sleep better and it is also a good mind workout. It is a good thing to get out of our own mind and get in someone else’s reality. Getting out can be releasing and it also brakes the monotony. I read to get answers and new questions.
A book is an invitation to explore. It’s an open door to a whole new world created in someone else’s mind. It is a way to experience humanity in different shoes. Compassion can be cultivated by facing other people’s struggles.
Reading is also the cheapest way to travel. To the past, to the future, to enchanted mystical palaces.
As in anything we love, we need to feed it the right way in order for it grow. March is national reading month. As I am all about celebrating I am spending some time every morning getting lost in a good story. As I’ve been interested in short stories lately, I will be reading another selection of Cortazar the “modern master of the short story”.
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