Books

I began to approach this assignment with the goal of finding a book I once read and recounting some romantic story about how it changed me. The reality is, no one book had that kind of impact on me. Maybe I'm just being cynical. I am not saying that books in general have not made an impact on me, just no single piece of literature.

As a child, I veraciously read anything I could get my hands on, from adventure to love stories to science fiction to mysteries. I couldn't read enough. Reading so much helped my context development, vocabulary, and understanding of different cultural standards. It expanded my intellectual boundaries, and for that I am grateful. Some books that I enjoyed immensely growing up were: Nightmare on Nantucket by Joan Aiken, Julie of the Wolves, Wuthering Heights, To Kill a Mockingbird, Schindler's List and of course Harry Potter. Each book that I read told a different story and perspective. I was able to escape into another world for an hour or two.

My perspective on books has changed in the past few years however. Instead of reading books for pleasure, I read them for classes because I have to. The material is focused on something I am responsible for, which takes the fun out of reading it. I wish I had more time to read for pleasure, but until I am done reading books that are required of me to read and have more free time-I cant see myself doing so.

I feel like in our culture reading is being replaced with other forms of media which makes me sad. People seem to identify the movie before the book and act surprised when/if they find out a book even existed before the movie. This is characteristic of the shifts in media today I suppose, where more visual and exciting media take the place of more tactile media which requires one to create their own mental imagery to follow along with the text.

The result seems to be a decrease in imagination, in the ability to employ the skills we possess to associate powerful words with imagery. I guess we have the opportunity to do so while interpreting advertising now. It's not quite the same.

I look forward to a time in my life where I have a place in my schedule to read for pleasure. Books carry a wealth of knowledge and simple perfection that is untouched by other forms of media. It seems impossible to pick just one, when the more you read, the better your appreciation gets.