i like reading summer-y books in the winter time because it makes me feel warm and i like reading winter books in the summer because they make me feel cold in the summer
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I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.
Franz Kafka (via bookporn)
Do not discourage children from reading because you feel they are reading the wrong thing. Fiction you do not like is a route to other books you may prefer. And not everyone has the same taste as you.
The problem with reading is that we are never talking about reading to learn, we are almost always talking about reading for pleasure, while at the same time nervously worrying about and sneering about the idea that reading is a fun and pleasurable activity instead of a higher calling. We’re very neurotic about this. We aren’t talking about reading a shelf of history books or psychology manuals, we’re talking novels…but what if they’re the wrong novels? Or what if they’re the right novels, but you don’t read them in the right way? Or what if you read Dickens, but you keep wandering off to watch goofy shit on the internet (That’s me).
What winds up happening is, we worry and grumble about people not reading, then turn around and worry and grumble about the sanctity and power of reading, and the way we must approach it with reverence or it might not count or something. And essentially what this does is suck all the pleasure out of reading.
from We Love and We Hate Reading For Pleasure by Peter Damien (via bookriot)
My friend wondered out loud whether reading “lighter” books would improve one’s mood and general outlook on life. Surely someone reading William Styron would be more depressed than someone reading Wallace Stegner….or would they? How much of it is what we read, and how much of it is our general personality and hardwiring? And how much do the two influence each other?
Don’t ever feel bad for re-reading one of your favorite books instead of getting started on all the books you haven’t yet read. If re-reading that book over and over makes you happy go for it! Don’t feel guilty.
Being a reader doesn’t mean always reading, and it doesn’t mean only reading. A dear friend of mine often says that books make us gluttons for life, and while I don’t attribute my desire to do non-book things on this vacation to any specific thing I’ve read, I know in my bones that reading both makes me more curious about the world and gives me a greater desire to engage with the people around me.
Sometimes, I need to not read.
from Vacation Reading, or A Vacation From Reading by Rebecca Joines Schinsky (via bookriot)
If our book consumption remains as low as it has been, at least let us admit that it is because reading is a less exciting pastime than going to the dogs, the pictures or the pub, and not because books, whether bought or borrowed, are too expensive.
George Orwell, “Books vs. Cigarettes,” 1946 (via austinkleon)
“In her childhood she learned to leave behind pain by reading books. Sometimes they took the books away—too many words, too much pleasure. She turned to poetry. Words to learn by heart—to say over and over again in the dark.”
— bell hooks, Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life
The reading of great books has been a life altering activity to me and, for better or worse, it brought me singing and language-obsessed to that country where I make my living. Except for teaching, I’ve had no other ambition in life than to write books that mattered
Pat Conroy (via philipjfoster)