Mint's Book Blog

I tried looking up a quote about reading and books to post on this blog and this was what came up...

“Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Yes, reading will cause word-rivers to flow from your mouth but reading will also expand our view of the world. It makes us live through many more experiences than our own. 

This is how C.S. Lewis eloquently puts it. "Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realize the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors. We realize it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tiny world. In it, we should be suffocated. The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented. Even the eyes of all humanity are not enough. I regret that the brutes cannot write books. Very gladly would I learn what face things present to a mouse or a bee; more gladly still would I perceive the olfactory world charged with all the information and emotion it carries for a dog."

Why do we read? One answer is that reading more will make one experience more as the quote above states. However, those that don't read may argue that they already experience a lot. I, on the other hand, just stay at home reading books. However, there is also another difference between you and your unliterary friend. Reading is not just about living through other's experiences, it is about expanding the spider web of our minds (I am currently thinking to myself sarcastically that this a word-river indeed. Maybe I have not read 1,000 books yet. Although, I do not know how many books I have read in my lifetime.) Those who read will have a better understanding of everything around them. They will learn more (than those who do not read regularly) when they experience something or read more books because they have more meaning connected to the words that are stuck in their web which is much bigger than those of book-averse people. You, if you are a book lover, will have experiences that will be much more RICHER and of a HIGHER QUALITY than your unliterary friends. 

Right now, I am currently reading The Arabian Nights Vol II and I recommend The Nights Vol I and Vol II to those who want to experience more. The tales are delightful and mostly short. You will get a feel of what it is to be like to be a king or a poor tailor during medieval times in the Middle East.