A few months ago, I came across an article in The Wall Street Journal, titled “The Need to Read” by Will Schwalbe. The article touches on a passion of mine and highlights that while reading is an activity that has fallen out of fashion, it is one that we should be happy to participate in.
Will Schwalbe said “…no book is so bad that you can’t find anything in it of interest. You can learn something from the very worst books…” Any book you pick up and read will be able to teach you something, whether it’s an example of a genuine friendship, how to cook a pot roast, or the name of a Civil War General.
Reading isn’t at the top of most peoples’ to-do list, especially when we get bombarded with emails on a daily basis, but knowing that you’ll learn a little bit from each book can be a real motivation. I encourage all of you sometime in the next month to pick up a book you haven’t read, and just finish the first few chapters. After that, you can decide whether or not you want to continue, but you never know what you could learn about yourself or the world around you by just opening a book.
In the article, Schwalbe also stated how reading can bring people together. The article focused on a grandma and her grandson, and how the Hunger Games books allowed them to find something to talk about. Before they read the same book, their conversations were often short and awkward; now, they looked forward to talking on the phone and comparing thoughts on the series. On a personal level, when I started dating Esther’s mother we were reading the same book, Nelson DeMille’s, “The Charm School”.
Even though this article focused on bringing those from different generations together, I know that reading can also bring together people of different genders, races, and locations. That is very powerful.
Currently, I am reading “Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates” by Brian Kilmeade; if any of you have read it I’d love to get your thoughts on it!
If you’d like to read the piece yourself, you can check it out here: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-need-to-read-1480083086 .
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