*Sigh* “I don’t read” is not music to a writer’s ears, but I hear it a lot.
Spring is here, it’s getting warmer, and it’s just about time I started writing the next book in my Bell Mountain series. But more and more people don’t read.
I don’t understand this. If books were taken away from me, my mind would starve. Enlightenment. Joy. Excitement. Even escape, at least for a little while. Books provide these things. I couldn’t do without them.
And yet… “I don’t read.” Or else, “I only read things that have to do with my work.” Or even, “I just don’t have the time to read.” As if it were some onerous chore.
I once had a job teaching “developmental reading”–or, more simply, how to read better. It’s not hard to learn. All it takes is practice. But these days I wonder how many students, if any, would sign up for my course.
I’ll keep writing because it’s what I do, it’s who I am. But I wish I knew a way to make reading itself more popular. It’s how the past speaks to us–and the future. It’s how wisdom and experience get passed on from one generation to the next. It’s the only way we have to visit places that don’t actually exist, to learn things that are nevertheless real, and true, despite being cloaked in the imagination.
Give it a chance.
Like this:
Like Loading...
