Something about the Reading Mania

After the moving printing press became a success, books began rolling out to commoners like bakery bread. Literacy became widespread and youngsters spent their time on a steady diet of books. Booksellers began using pedals to reach people in tiny villages. This was a sudden outbreak just like when Facebook became accessible to us back in 2008. Everyone wanted in on it; ready for the next book, ready to devour it, savour a good story and live in a world beyond the four walls of your house. Isn’t all of this familiar?
The need to follow adventurers on Instagram just to see their next trekking destination and those oh so lovely serene views, or just to follow those YouTubers to see what exciting things are happening in their lives most of whom live on the other side of the globe and not to mention Snapchat- stories about how someone spent their day is a direct window to live beyond your confinements.

Books acted like these gateways in the 17th century. Markets were stocked with horror books, mystery books, adventure books and most of all romance books. Now romance books were big on these people not because of the reasons we call them sloppy. Romance had a mysterious aura to it, it was secretive and almost forbidden. In real life youngsters were not allowed to second guess the companion chosen for them by their parents. Their spouses weren’t handsome and beautiful nor did they have adventures like in the novels. Personal lives were as dull as can be. There was no adventure, no opinion to be put forth or any scandals to talk about. And books gave you all of that.
This is when the reading mania began. Young ladies and gentlemen would buy books, exchange them and read as much as possible. They would begin the book in the morning as early as possible. Probably gobble down breakfast or eat while reading. They wouldn’t put the book down.

One after the other they would read and read. The clueless parents got so scared that they finally approached doctors. As a collective term doctors began to call this phenomenon as ‘reading mania.’
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