What is the Good of Literature →
C.S. Lewis said, “The good of literature is that we want to become more than ourselves; we want to see with others’ eyes, to imagine with others’ imaginations, to feel with others’ hearts, as well as our own.”
He also said we become a thousand men and yet remain ourselves. When it happens, you will feel renewed and reinvented.
Common Reasons People Read
It helps gain valuable knowledge and learn about new things.
It exercises the brain and improves cognitive skills, such as comprehension, memory, and focus.
It provides entertainment and stimulates the imagination.
It improves the ability to empathize and communicate with others.
What to Read Next and Why →
The question of what to read next comes up over and over throughout our lives. Some offer answers but don’t explain why their choices should be of value to us.
A successful fiction and fantasy writer, Neil Gaiman doesn’t hesitate to suggest an answer and offer a why. He said, "Fiction is the gateway drug to reading.” He added that fiction drives us to want to know what happens next. It becomes exciting and satisfies the excitement as we turn the pages.
When we read fiction, it increases our imagination and results in our finding something new of interest. The new things we find may lead us in a direction such as science, history, or art. So we could look for a biography of a person with an area of similar interest to our own.
The path to the next book, or even choosing one to re-read, is often built on past choices. Years ago, I watched the movie “Apocalypse Now.” That led me to reread Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” set in Africa with the same basic plot. The book was considered one of Conrad’s best.
Some criticized Conrad’s book for having a white man’s perspective on life in Africa. I wanted to find another view. I wondered if there were good African writers that I could read. At that point in my life, I had never looked for African writers. I looked and found many good ones who were respected for their work. I found several authors of interest. At the time, Chinua Achebe emerged as a well-known African author for his book “Things Fall Apart.”
It seemed to be the perfect “other point of view” I was looking for. This book is indeed something that should be read by anyone who reads “Heart of Darkness” and wonder if they have seen Africa correctly.
REVIEW OF "THINGS FALL APART, by CHINA ACHEBE
HEART OF DARKNESS BY JOSEPH CONRAD
Wish I had a better list of books to show for my younger years →
Looking back to my childhood to recall what books I read is challenging. First, I don't remember many of them, but then I know I didn't read many books of any importance until my mid-teens. I don't understand why that was because I thought I was a pretty smart kid. I got good grades, and school was just easy for me.
One time in my early teens, I went to Salt Lake on one of their regular trips with my parents. At that time, my Uncle’s family lived in the North Salt Lake area, and we stopped for a visit. He had a large family, and the two girls that were the closest to me in age were sharp girls. Socially, probably ahead of me at the time, and perhaps even a little brighter. I remember as I walked down the hall, seeing in each of their bedrooms that they had books by their beds. The idea that having books to read at that age was good did occur to me from this experience. Nevertheless, I didn't just change my habits and start reading things. I wish I had.
When I was about 3 or 4, my parents would take turns reading to me at bedtime. They read kid books. Probably from the Little Golden Books series. At about eight years old, I started reading funny books. Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Donald Duck, and Uncle Scrooge. At about ten years old, I started reading Boy's Life. At around 12, I started reading movie magazines.
I read the TV guide, Reader's Digest, and Popular Mechanics. I suppose I read everything that was around the house.
After about the 9th grade, I became interested in some well-known dystopian books such as 1984, Brave New World, and Animal Farm. By the time I started college, my interest in philosophy had led me to The Republic by Plato, Aristotle, and The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, to name a few. I read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, and then a lot of self-help books.
When I finished college, I began reading a lot of business books. Robert Ringer's book "Winning Through Intimidation" impacted me. I also started reading church books. I have read the scriptures over and over throughout my life.
I have read Ulysses by James Joyce several times to find out if I could understand it. I have read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and most of what Shakespeare wrote. Moby Dick is a book that I read several times and started out hating, but after the last reading, I saw it as a great book. Henry David Thoreau's Walden and Civil Disobedience are books I have read several times.
My love of these books led me to pick the authors that stood out to me. Edgar Allan Poe, Steinbeck, J.D. Salinger, Virginia Woolf, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Charles Dickens are all authors I like. Hemmingway and Mark Twain are authors I have read a lot but don't care for. Faulkner, Nabokov, T.S. Elliot, C.S Lewis, Toni Morrison, Walt Whitman, and Franz Kafka all have many great books I have read.
I love the authors but love the poets even more sometimes. Robert Frost is a favorite poet, and a new poet I like and want to hear more from is Amanda Gorman. Her inauguration day poem for President Biden, "The Hill we Climb," is amazing.
Ok, I have some fallback favorites. Stephen King always gets my attention. This shortlist is top-heavy for what I have read as an adult. There are probably several dozen authors I should have included. (Apology to Maya Angelou, for example) Lots of just modern and exciting authors.
Reading Changes Our View of Our Path Taken Throughout Our Life →
I admire those that can quote favorite thoughts from favorite books, famous people, or scriptures. Even more so, I admire those that can remember most of what they have read. I find myself going back and rereading much of what I have already read, and when I do, it often feels like a whole new experience. Each reading brings something new to us.
Why would going back and re-reading bring new thoughts? This same question could be asked as to why you see things differently when you retell your life story. One answer to this question is a crucial point I used in my book: Why Life Stories Change: As you Look at your Own Life Story, You See Yourself Differently. When you re-read something or retell your life story, you see things through a lens that has added experiences to your view.
Abraham Lincoln said: “What I want to know is in books, and my best friend is the one who will get me a book I haven’t read.”