Why Do We Read?

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 31, 6 February 1937, Page 15 (Supplement)

Why Do We Read?

Much popular reading is simply a mass-escape from life. People consume books as they drink coffee, smoke, chew gum or play patience, as anodynes and drugs. They read to dull the tho brain, not to vitalise it; to lose rather than to find themselves. But reading which deserves the name should be a means not of escape from but of enchantment of life. (Groat literature confers upon our being a permanent enrichment. For what, it may be asked, is the object of reading unless something definite comes of it* One would be better advised to play bridge. What is tho point of reading history, philosophy, morals or biography, unless it affects our lives and actions in tho present world! What is the sense of reading poetry or fiction unless as a result you see more beauty, more passion, more scope for your sympathy and interest in the world than you saw beforet Above all, reading should help a man to discover him self. Unless by one method or another, by contrast or by sympathy a book reveals a man to himself. I doubt if it can properly be called a book at all. —John O ’London.