Reading
Reading is an important skill to have. It is a silent form of entertainment. Reading is declining as different forms of entertainment mediums emerge. What once used to be an important skill is now looked upon as a boring activity. The purpose of this article is not to persuade people to take up reading but to shed some light on this declining skill.
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only once.
— George R.R. Martin
Most of the learning happens through reading. Believe it or not we read majority of the time, consciously or subconsciously, through different medium like sign boards, social media posts, books etc. It is hard to inculcate book reading into our daily life and it takes a lot of effort to make it a habit.
How to read?
Reading can be intimidating sometimes and the only way to engage in reading is to dive into reading some stuff. It doesn’t matter what you are reading until you get used to it. The best way to improve your reading habit is to read some novel. Novels provide you with great engagement with the characters in it. The initial pages can be boring but after reading two or three pages you will progress through it no matter what.
Why reading is not popular compared to other mediums?
Reading used to be popular during the olden times. Enter the fast paced digital medium where video and audio content is easily available, reading can be boring as hell for some. Reading may not be as interactive as other entertainment medium like movies or TV Shows but it helps us to imagine our own perception of characters. You will perceive the story using your own mental models and trust me it is one of the great experiences that makes book reading a worthy experience.
Physical book vs E-Book?
The debate whether physical book is good or an e-book can be found anywhere and it continues for ages. Different people have different opinions over it. I prefer e-books as I own Amazon Kindle Ebook Reader and it is easy and light to carry it anywhere but as a popular medium physical books are in great demand. Your choice can simply boil down to this point:
- If you value portability — choose e-book reader like Amazon Kindle.
- If you value originality and authentic reading experience — choose a physical book.
Alternate forms of reading
Audiobooks are some other popular forms of reading (i.e., listening), where user can listen to the book instead of reading it. This medium is gaining momentum as the world is fast paced and busy. Amazon Audible is the leading example for listening audiobooks.
Getting the gist of a book
People get impatient sometimes and instead of reading or listening to the whole book, they will look for main points or the summary of a book. Many applications are available online to give users a brief summary of a book some examples include Blinkist, a service which provides summaries for hundreds of non-fiction books.
If you want to read summaries for popular non-fiction books, you can check these free websites like Four Minute Books and James Clear.
Community for book lovers
In the olden days there used to be a community of people who would come together and discuss about their recent reads and book recommendations. We rarely find such gatherings now, but we can find a lot of communities online for the same purpose where readers can interact with others irrespective of geographical locations. Amazon Goodreads is one such community where readers can maintain lists like “want to read” and “read” and interact with other readers. It is like Facebook for readers.
Keep track of what you read
Keeping track of what you read can encourage you to read more. I prefer Amazon Goodreads where I catalog books I’ve read and books that I want to read and currently reading.
Conclusion
This is my opinion about reading and is an attempt to make people aware of this piece of entertainment where people get transported to the magical realms of the story.
Originally published at https://prasanthmsvs.blogspot.com on January 29, 2020.
