Why Read Books?

In recent years, more and more people have confessed to me that they do not know why they read. Probably the reason is that films and TV shows have provided stories and entertainment that books used to supply. With entertainment available in other mediums, people have no need for it in books. Besides entertainment, the only other purpose for reading books is information which, frankly, inundates the Internet. So, why read books?

Ideas.

When I read Day One, the story of the atomic bomb, I was amazed at the mistakes, mishaps, and misjudgments that went into the making of a scientific marvel; the disagreements over the target and the reasons that one target was chosen over another illustrate how human decisions can change the map of human destiny. The book also tells about the vivid effects of the bomb. And hubris brought down General Grove and Dr. Oppenheimer when they thought they were invincible because of what they had achieved as leaders of the Manhattan Project. They weren’t. These experiences reinforced my belief that everything human is political.

I was chagrined at the irony of war in Wings of Morning, the story of the last American bomber shot down over Germany at the end of WWII. The plane was not scheduled to fly a mission; the weather should have caused the flight to be turned back; the position of the plane in the formation was not its normal position; the target, Regensburg, should not have been on the flight path and it was the only plane hit by flack in spite of the fact that it was surrounded by other planes. The result was the needless loss of young lives and a crushing loss to their loved ones. The irony of war has never been more clearly illustrated.

Bonfire of the Vanities was a novel of the injustice of the American justice system, played out in real life in Duke University’s witch hunt by a demagogic attorney general. The essential workings of the injustice in the novel were shockingly like the real-life story of the Duke University athletes. The district attorney, the lawyers and the media conspired to convict the innocent.

John Kennedy said that he never saw his father read a serious book. My own father told me that after he graduated from law school he said he would never read another book and he never did.

I think people are overwhelmed by books. Reading books was required in school and it was a chore. The book dominates the person; people do not use books for their own purposes. My goal in this portion of English in Plain English is to show people how to use books to find ideas of interest to them.

Many people feel that reading books is boring. They are overwhelmed by long books and they inevitably lose interest. Someone once said that it’s not the book that is boring; it’s the reader. The trouble with readers who think books are boring is that they begin with the first word in the first sentence on page one and read every word and every sentence from the first page to the last page. They feel it is their duty to put the same effort into reading that writers put into writing their books. However, I have learned that Francis Bacon was right when he said in 1625, “…some books are to be read only in parts; … and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”

People will take the time to read books if they can immerse themselves in them. How can they immerse themselves in books? Maintaining interest in reading books is what this section of English in Plain English is about. Reading is not a passive activity. The key to maintaining interest in reading books is reading actively and the key to reading actively is previewing.

Warning: The ideas on reading in the preceding pages of my blog on Teaching English, How To.... are unorthodox. Several people have told me that I read “crazy.” I have learned how to immerse myself in books. I read for ideas. And you never can tell where ideas will take you.

My methods could turn you into the reader you want to be.

Re-read the previous descriptions of how to preview and how to read actively by interacting (annotating) articles, chapters, nonfiction books, novels and short stories.

In my next blogs I will give examples of ideas I have gained from books. RayS.