Why Everyone Should Read More Books
These words by Cassandra Clare couldn’t be more precise and true. Books are influential but what makes it truly powerful is all of what’s inside of it, put together, molded, and created by a person whose words may live forever.
No matter how many may say the overused phrases, “it’s boring,” “there’s no pictures,” or “it’s not interesting,” there will always be those ‘lovers’ of literature who will prove them otherwise. These are the kinds of people who love to make use of their wild imagination, who believes in its power, and who also finds happiness from it.
I’m definitely happy to say I’m one of those people. I may be that clichéd, bibliophile who finds solitude in reading in a coffee-shop alone rather than mingling in a large crowd, but at least I have this beautiful world in my mind through my books. I just wish there was more room in my little head to accommodate all of these knowledge, all of these imagination and all of these overwhelming sensation that only literature can do and the only possible reason of these frantic, beautiful emotions.
It plays with every feeling I have, every passion and sentiment inside of me. It brings out something I have never expressed and felt before, and it makes me feel lucky to be able to feel like this, it makes me feel so… human.
Unexpectedly, books brought me closer to people. I find it amazing how you get closer to a person, especially to a stranger, when you both find a common interest, not only in books but also in other things. Say, you both found out that you love the same book and now you have that indescribable feeling of how happy you are to have met someone who loves the same thing as you do. As you were affected by this book, he felt that when he read it as well and both of you can’t stop talking about it and maybe that is why I find it so amazing of how a little thing can bring together two or more people, not because of the literal thing itself, but because of the feeling they get from it.
I love getting lost in things as wondrous as books. I love learning new words, I love exploring their meanings and I love using them for the first time. I even love using them for other people to know and to hear. It is quite nice to confound people with their own language.
I love drowning myself with their stories and I love the way they let me live different lives. I love the belonging I feel whenever I read a book. Like I’m a part of its story, like I’m a part of something truly amazing. And I hope it’s like that for anyone who has a passion for reading too. I hope books affect them in a way no one or no other thing has affected them like that before.
I hope they all suffer from a book hangover after they finish a book like I do, I hope buying a new book gives them a tiny bit of happiness, I hope it gives them joy because the feeling you get from reading a good book is unexplainable and I want that for everyone to feel, to experience. I want everyone to know the ‘blissfulness,’ the ‘warm fuzzies’ you feel from enjoying a glimpse of the other world through reading a book.
Books can affect us in the most peculiar, unique way. It gives us a feeling of sense of place or home or it hands us the feeling of contentment and happiness. They affect different people in different ways. It all depends on how we read the book, how we understand its message and how we want to be affected by it.
I started all of this with a quotation, I’m ending it with one as well. And yet again, it couldn’t be more precise and true. “They say money can’t buy happiness, but I have a receipt from the bookstore telling a whole different story.”