Dinosaurs didn't read books and look what happened to them! — Anonymous
I was first introduced to reading books by my brother, who is an avid reader. The first book I that made an impact for me was “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone” in 2002. All through the years, I realized how important reading is and how it affects your life in many ways. I have jotted down 5 reasons why you must read books.
1.Expands your horizons: As Jhumpa Lahiri said “That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet”.Some books make us travel around the world, imagine things in our thoughts and provide so many insights.
2.Imagination and Creativity: “A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.” — William Styron. You will start to appreciate the joy of imagination and how creative people can be. When you read a book and understand its contents, you try to think more from different perspectives.
3.Knowledge: The more that you read,the more things you will know.The more that you learn, the more places you” ll go” — Dr Seuss.Reading a book can teach you something new or introduce things to you from a different perspective. It can increase your knowledge about a subject and maybe make you more interested in things you don’t even know.
4.Develop Empathy: Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while.”- Malorie Blackman.When you read a story, your emotions pine for one character and lookout for that one character. Your curiosity and interest to read the next chapters increase as you develop empathy for the characters.
5. A book can influence you as a person: “Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry.”- Cassandra Clare.Books can change the way we perceive things. Introduce us to different ways of thinking, help us to accept things, govern our behavior.
Most importantly, when you read books on real life, you learn from other’s experiences. You at least know one of the 14,000,605 visions that Dr. Strange (quote from Avengers: The end game movie) has of living your life.
“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” — Neil Gaiman
