I grew up around a lot of literature. I read a lot of books when I was in kindergarten, even more as the years went on and my reading and writing skills developed. There has always been this collective idea that reading is boring, no one likes to read, and that reading books in your spare time is “lame”. I argue that reading, and the more you read, is actually insanely cool, and I’ll give you a couple of reasons as to why I think this later. Not only is it cool, but it’s also actually imperative. Everyone must read; it’s a part of life for relatively everyone, so reading is a skill that everyone should be constantly working on. Simply put, read more. Read more of what is interesting to you, more of what you want to know, more of what might help you in your journey and I guarantee that you’ll like reading a whole lot more than you think you do.
So why is reading so important? Obviously, it’s a big part of our everyday lives, but reading books, things that get us thinking and wondering, things that inspire us, spark some kind of light inside us, I think these are far more important reasons to read more – bonus points if you buy books from time to time and collect them over the course of your life so you can have your own specially curated library one day (this is my goal, but you’re free to copy!). With so many genres of books, there are books out there for everyone, you just have to find a few that spark that initial interest and see if it’s as good as the cover is… I know we all judge books by their covers but take it from someone who did this for way too long, ugly books deserve a chance too!
Something my Papa said to me when I was younger that’s really stuck with me, is how reading is just like learning; you could be reading a storybook and learn 100 new words from that storybook. You could be reading a self-help book and learning new ways to cope with stress. You could be reading a book about how language is weaponized and used in ways to manipulate people, and now maybe you have access to those manipulation tactics, who knows? Either way, there’s no way you can read an entire book, whatever it may be about and not take something away from it that you didn’t know prior to reading it. This is one of my favourite things about reading because my Papa also explained to me how important knowledge is. Reading, to put it another way, is a hobby that can teach you endless things in your life, and that sounds cool to me. Being able to enjoy a story and know new things that you could use as a conversation starter, or as an ice breaker in a super uncomfortable situation is kind of fun!
So, to touch on the reading and writing relationship, I was taught in school that the more you read, the more you learn, and in turn, you will be a better writer if you read more. That’s because you learn so much from books, not just from the words spoken, but the ways in which authors decide to paint them onto the pages. I say this as a metaphor because authors are able to paint pictures in our minds from the words they write, and we all know the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, this is important too, because this taps into our creativity. Our creative mind is important to feed, and books, oftentimes storybooks (novels if you want to be an adult about it) are great places to find inspiration for creativity. Furthermore, the more you read, the more you learn about different authors’ writing styles, and you might be able to come up with your own if you haven’t yet. Every author has a unique style of writing, so becoming familiar with more than one can show you how different they all can be, even though they all do the same kind of thing. From various authors you can learn different ways of getting across important information, you can even learn the basics, of just spelling and grammar from books. Who said reading was lame again?
To conclude, summer is one of the best times for a lot of people to read; students aren’t plagued with the hundreds of pages of reading they are already assigned and bringing books to the beach or the cottage is always fun. Reading outside means you can get your tan on and learn new things at the same time, multitasking is great! Summer is obviously the superior month, but I won’t get into that, I just think it’s one of the best times to enjoy the outdoors, camping, travelling, etc. while reading as well. I’ll leave a list of some promising books for this summer in case this article made you rethink why you aren’t getting lost in a book right now…
Some books that aren’t out yet, but will be soon:
- With Teeth by Kristen Arnett (June 1)
- Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford (June 1)
- The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Delila Harris (June 1)
- Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch by Rivka Galchen (June 8)
- China Room by Sunjeev Sahota (July 13)
- Golden Rod: Poems by Maggie Smith (July 27)
Some Oldies but goodies, and some from my personal collection:
- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
- Warrior Life by Pamela Palmiter
- For One Day by Mitch Albom (or any Mitch Albom book)
- The Vanishing Act by Mette Jakobsen
- Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
