Kenneth Josephson, 1988
I never understand why under "Favorite Books" on Facebook (obviously the only official way of listing your Favorite things), people purposefully write: "I don't read." Facetious or not, this is like standing on a rooftop in a crowd of all of your closest friends and obscure acquaintances and shouting, "I am ignorant!" If you don't read, you claim to not have enough time to read, or your reading selection is limited to Sports Illustrated and/or Cosmopolitan (don't get me wrong - there's a time and place for everything and I am NOT slandering the female "bible"), you probably shouldn't publicize this fact. At least list some generic novel you were required to read in your Honors 11th grade English class like The Great Gatsby or To Kill a Mockingbird. Even if you only quickly glanced over the CliffsNotes the period prior in order to pass the "pop" quiz.
I don't think being a so-called bookworm has ever been of a detriment to me. I began reading when I was three - my parents read to me every night and day and I could read all of the books on the Kindergarten shelf as soon as I began school at age four. Chapter books started that year. The weekly trip to the library resulted in large stacks of books that I would fly through effortlessly, a children's dictionary nearby in case there was a big word I didn't recognize. I was already lightyears ahead of my classmates but I suppose I never fully realized this continually developing margin until recently. At the bar, I will be drunk and rave about how I love reading and spelling and words and grammar. Probably a terrible topic in inebriation, but I can't say that anyone has ever been turned off by it. Believe it or not, most people enjoy speaking with seemingly smart people - weird, I know. Have you ever heard a guy say he wants to date a stupid, illiterate, ditzy, uneducated girl? I guess as long as she's a smokeshow.
In America, forty-two million adults are illiterate. Fifty million adults are limited to a 4th or 5th grade reading level or can only recognize a few printed words (Source: www.readfaster.com). To further this, the majority of people I know are in the midst of completing or have completed a secondary education. It's pretty difficult to get through college without reading. Yet most still struggle between the correct forms of your/you're or their/there/they're. HOW?! This is extremely disconcerting to me. Perhaps it's the informality of social media, but even if your coveted career is not a professional one, communicating well both in the written word and orally is of the utmost importance! If not anything else, these skills can be attained through reading. And actually paying attention when you read. Spelling, grammar, vocabulary - it's all there.
Even beyond the added credibility reading gives you, books can broaden our horizons. In the movie Pleasantville, all of the kids were in awe when words began appearing in the books and the library became the jumpoff. What lays outside of circular Main Street? Applicable to us, what lays yonder - away from the small, incestuous bubbles where we exist? Our world is limited to the events and people we encounter - believe it or not, things of note happen elsewhere. Whether fiction or non-fiction, reading extends our views, curtails geographical and cultural gaps, and tugs at the right-side of the brain, the place where childlike and boundless imagination live. Icksnay the narrow-mindedness of the old and welcome the well-roundedness of the new.
Books can make you laugh out loud, they can make you silently cry. They can make you think until your mind turns raw, or make you cringe until your heart explodes. They can fill you with wonderment from otherworldly desires, or curiosity from the unknown - your cup can never be full. They will fill your every day speech with adverbs and adjectives that make a dream of conversing with you. The English language is one of the largest in the world - about 1,022,000 words and consistently growing - yet in every day language, 1/3 of our vocabulary is limited to 22 words... 22 = 1/3 of 1,022,000?! That's some fugged up math.
Language is our every day. Embrace and appreciate its essence and necessity. Go read a fuckin' book.
An abbreviated list of some favorites:
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Wasteland by Francesca Lia Block
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo/The Girl Who Played with Fire/The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
How to Be Single by Liz Tucillo
On The Road by Jack Kerouac
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
About a Boy by Nick Hornby
The Street Lawyer by John Grisham
Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella
I could ramble on forever but won't for brevity's sake... please leave me some titles of your beloved books!
I don't think being a so-called bookworm has ever been of a detriment to me. I began reading when I was three - my parents read to me every night and day and I could read all of the books on the Kindergarten shelf as soon as I began school at age four. Chapter books started that year. The weekly trip to the library resulted in large stacks of books that I would fly through effortlessly, a children's dictionary nearby in case there was a big word I didn't recognize. I was already lightyears ahead of my classmates but I suppose I never fully realized this continually developing margin until recently. At the bar, I will be drunk and rave about how I love reading and spelling and words and grammar. Probably a terrible topic in inebriation, but I can't say that anyone has ever been turned off by it. Believe it or not, most people enjoy speaking with seemingly smart people - weird, I know. Have you ever heard a guy say he wants to date a stupid, illiterate, ditzy, uneducated girl? I guess as long as she's a smokeshow.
Even beyond the added credibility reading gives you, books can broaden our horizons. In the movie Pleasantville, all of the kids were in awe when words began appearing in the books and the library became the jumpoff. What lays outside of circular Main Street? Applicable to us, what lays yonder - away from the small, incestuous bubbles where we exist? Our world is limited to the events and people we encounter - believe it or not, things of note happen elsewhere. Whether fiction or non-fiction, reading extends our views, curtails geographical and cultural gaps, and tugs at the right-side of the brain, the place where childlike and boundless imagination live. Icksnay the narrow-mindedness of the old and welcome the well-roundedness of the new.
Books can make you laugh out loud, they can make you silently cry. They can make you think until your mind turns raw, or make you cringe until your heart explodes. They can fill you with wonderment from otherworldly desires, or curiosity from the unknown - your cup can never be full. They will fill your every day speech with adverbs and adjectives that make a dream of conversing with you. The English language is one of the largest in the world - about 1,022,000 words and consistently growing - yet in every day language, 1/3 of our vocabulary is limited to 22 words... 22 = 1/3 of 1,022,000?! That's some fugged up math.
Language is our every day. Embrace and appreciate its essence and necessity. Go read a fuckin' book.
An abbreviated list of some favorites:
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Wasteland by Francesca Lia Block
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo/The Girl Who Played with Fire/The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
How to Be Single by Liz Tucillo
On The Road by Jack Kerouac
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
About a Boy by Nick Hornby
The Street Lawyer by John Grisham
Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella
I could ramble on forever but won't for brevity's sake... please leave me some titles of your beloved books!
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