So, I run a lot of races, many of which are held by a company called Why Racing. At each of their events, they have a wall (sometimes w/ chalk, sometimes w/ sticky notes) where you answer the question, “What’s your why?” and people write down why they run/race.
So along those lines, my question to y’all this week is: why do you read?
“Words are life” is a quote from The Book Thief that I have on a tee and on a yeti mug. I read for entertainment, escape, education, experience…
I’ve been reading since before I started elementary school and I have never quit. As a student I would work hard on assignments and then reward myself with reading time. That continued through advanced degrees. Reading is like breathing—I need it to live.
I came up with this question about a week ago, and I’ve been giving it a lot of thought.
In addition to asking myself what motivates me to read, I got to thinking about why I became a reader as well. I’ve got some serious issues with my mother, but reading is one thing that she gave me for which I’ll be forever grateful. Although not a big reader herself, she always encouraged me to read. She read to me as a kid, she took me to the library often, and although money was tight she always found money to allow me to buy books when the Scholastic catalog came out at school.
My motivations for reading have changed over the years. When I was a kid - from about third grade on - I was that fat child with greasy hair and thick glasses that everyone picked on. Books were my escape. As I got a little older, they became a form of entertainment - reading just because I enjoyed it. Then, as I got older still, I started reading for information - more NF, more historical fiction.
Unfortunately, reading is now my job. I get to choose review books from a list, so those are the ones I pick because they sound interesting. Most of the others, though, are assigned for one reason or another. I’m very rarely sorry that I read them - and in fact, most I probably wouldn’t have chosen for myself - but it does keep me from getting to the books I really want to read.
I don’t remember a time when I couldn’t read. Having a mother who was a children’s librarian meant books were always available & being rather introverted, I prefered books over people. Then when I began working at a public library, I read to help with my readers advisory skills & it helped me decompress after dealing with people–even though they were readers–all day. Now retired, I continue to spend far more time reading than I probably should but I still prefer fictional company to actual humans and it shields me somewhat from the news which grows more depressing each day.
@Carol_Ann_Robb haha re preferring books over people. I’m the same way - quite the introvert.
A lot of my reading lately tends to cause me to find parallels to today’s current issues. That’s both a good thing and a bad thing. On the one hand, it makes me think too much about the news, but on the other, it gives me hope since we’ve survived and risen above this sort of stuff in the past.
So true @Carol_Ann_Robb. I too am an introvert and would mostly rather spend time with books than with people. I’m pretty happy to talk with most anybody about books though.
When I read your question I thought DA, because I like to, of course! Then I began to really consider your question with less of a ““flipped” attitude. I read, like many of you, for several reasons.But most of all, I’m grateful to my Grandma Miller who was a storyteller, if she didn’t have book available, she made it up. We grandchildren never knew the difference, it was her pure imagination and never published. For years, her “Tommy and the Fishes” were a part of our lives. I can’t begin to describe how shocked the grandchildren were when she was asked why they had not be able to purchase a copy at the bookstore or find it on a library shelf. She simply smiled and quietly confessed to Tommy being a fragment of her imagination. I often thought that someday as a tribute, I might tackle it, even if its self self published for family’s enjoyment.
Those storytelling journeys soon lead me to Saturday afternoon visits to the public library where I explored Dr. Doolittle, Uncle Wingley, Bobbsey Twins and Sue Barton, student nurses series. Through these doors I became the reader I am today. Now as then, I read for enjoyment, fun, adventure, information and simply for the love of words on the printed page. And through the years, with life’s ups and downs, I always had reading to fall back on. Its gotten me through some heavy times, thanks goodness for the talents of so many authors. Where else can one find yourself riding on an elephant in deepest darkest Africia, spend time with an abolished queen in her palace’s cell or experience the dust storms of the middle west? I say BRAVO to the art of reading!
I realize as I ponder the question that the why has changed over the years. As a young person in elementary school, I wasn’t fond of sitting with a book, especially books not of my choosing. You’d find me skipping rope or roller skating with friends or going to my brothers’ little league games. I did find children’s rhyming poetry very amusing and even started writing my own. In junior high school, the English teacher got us hooked on Edgar Allan Poe which led me to appreciate other short story writers as well. But other than for school assignments, I did more journaling and poetry writing than reading - same for high school. Once I enrolled in some college courses part-time my mind exploded with curiosity and I think that would be the word I would use to explain the why for me, a curious mind and of course a love of the written word and its many powers. Now companionship carries a lot of the why weight as well - sharing not only the experience along with the fictional characters in the book, but also with the living characters in book clubs!