For the love of books.

Philosophy #2: For a healthy body, eat your veggies. For a healthy mind, read. Read A LOT.

 I must admit. I have a love affair with words. I have an entire notebook dedicated to quotes and passages that particularly strike me. Needless to say, reading has always been a vital part of my life. As a very small child I remember curling up on my parents' four-poster bed with my brother for my mama to read aloud to us- everything from The B.F.G (Roald Dahl, you are truly an artist) to Little House on the Prairie, to Harry Potter. When I got a little bit older, Mama had a notebook where we all kept track of the books we'd read as we completed them. And would you believe it, she kept it!

My reading skills were impeccable. My penmanship, on the other hand...

I digress. Books have been instrumental in my life for as long as I can remember. However, it seems that life always seems to get in the way of the things we enjoy the most- or rather, we LET life get in the way. It is in this fashion that I have let my "reading for fun" passion fall to the wayside to make room for "reading for necessity". Allow me to explain...


Grad school is basically reading, studying, reading, reading, writing, reading, crying, followed by some light reading. My eyes are literally burning most days when I leave my office. I read so much, that I forgot reading used to be fun. Used to be a get away. And only adding to the detriment of my passion for words is the ever-present Netflix trap. I come home, I take the dog out, I take a shower, make some dinner, and bam my butt is on the couch for the evening, ready for a consecutive string of Parks & Recreation episodes.

I simply cannot stress just how important I think reading is. And I'm not just talking Jane Austen or Tom Clancy here. I'm talking anything you can get your hands on. Read the news, read about science, read about politics! All our lives we've heard "your brain is a muscle, it needs exercise". It's so true! 

If you ever encountered somebody who's an absolute bore to be around and a dirt poor conversationalist - chances are, they don't read. 

You don't have to be "smart" to be intelligent. Intelligence is self-taught - it's information. The bottom line, without getting on my high horse and trotting off to a topic for another day,

EDUCATE YOURSELF.

Because you can't trust anyone else to do it for you. 

Benefits of reading:
-you'll almost always have something to talk about, no matter who you're with or what situation you're in
-you'll be confident and well-informed
-you'll dazzle your friends with your vocabulary and conversational skills

Disadvantages of reading:
-you'll probably fall in love with a fictional character whom you'll never actually get to meet and will likely spend weeks wallowing in your self-pity and sorrow   

I find myself often having to digress. I stumbled across something on the good old Facebook the other day that has inspired me to revive my love of reading.

Following is my personal list, in order of the above figure.

1. A Gathering of Shadows - V. E. Schwab
2. The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
3. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
4. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. Safely Home - Randy Alcorn
7. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
8. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
9. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
10. Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
11. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
12. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

 

 If you, too, are a reading connoisseur, I would highly encourage you to participate in this challenge! If I succeed, 2016 will be known as the year I finally conquered War & Peace. I'm coming for you, Tolstoy. 

      Love one another! -C.