On the Actual Reading of Books

Women of culture in the days of yore were expected to cultivate their minds as well as their manners by the reading of books. And there is much to be said for reviving that practice today. I do not have research to back up my opinions, but I will lay out a few of the benefits I have found for spending one’s time reading books, rather than, for example, watching movies or TV for entertainment.

Firstly: It improves your vocabulary. It really does. People have told me and my siblings that we sound like we’re from England or some other European country, merely because we are precise in our speech and use longer/more obscure/more precise words. At college, I found I had to explain myself frequently to my fellow students, because they didn’t know words like “callow” or “scintillating” or  “colloquial.” It comes of reading books. And it’s amazing how quickly your vocabulary can slip if you stop reading books for an extended period of time.

Secondly: Scanning a page is a lot healthier than staring at a screen.

Thirdly: You will learn a lot. Especially if you choose your books carefully, but even those dreadful dime-a-dozen murder mysteries contain a decent amount of interesting trivia. And no, you will not learn just as much by watching detective shows on TV. When you read something you internalize it more than if you were watching it…possibly because you can read at your own pace, pause, back up and re-read, almost without noticing it, whereas a show goes along at a predetermined pace, and while your remote does have pause and rewind buttons, are you very likely to use them?

Fourthly: Books are adaptable to a busy schedule. If you sit down to watch a movie, you kind of have to devote two hours together out of your day to that activity. Whereas the nice thing about books is that, when used in conjunction with bookmarks, you can pick up and leave off at your convenience, without worrying about using up electricity, tying up the DVD drive, or missing anything.

Fifthly: Somehow, when you finish a book, you don’t get that feeling that you’ve just wasted a lot of time, like you get when you finish a marathon session of your favorite TV show. Maybe that’s just me. Maybe not. Just sayin’ (to quote a colloquialism).

Lastly: I must say, the idea of having one’s own personal library and having read most, if not all, of the books in it, is appealing indeed.