Why does it matter? Some, like author Neil Gaiman, would say our very future depends on reading. Admitting that he was biased, as a person who makes a living through words, Gaiman gave a lecture in London for the Reading Agency in October 2013. In it, he made an impassioned plea for the future of libraries and a literate society full of book lovers. “If you want your children to be intelligent,” he quoted Einstein, “read them fairy tales.” He continued by saying, “If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” This echoes Einstein’s famed dictum that “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Exercising the brain by reading and understanding, comprehending nuance, weighing up arguments, is a great defense against degenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s. Reading allows us to develop empathy, enhance vocabulary, think new thoughts, puzzle things out, appreciate differences. Reading continues education far and beyond the end of school or university. Readers are often daydreamers, and the dreamers are the ones who tend to change the world. For these reasons, and more, it is certainly to be hoped that the American book-lover is not an endangered species, and that the next generation will continue to reverse the decline.
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 16:39:42 +0000