PLEASURES OF READING

“Read different to think differently; world is already into rat race.”

― Aman Jassal, Rainbow - the shades of love

Reading a book is perhaps the greatest source of pleasure to a cultured person. Reading broadens his outlooks, drives away his narrow prejudices and lightens up his mind with truth and knowledge.

Books are our best friends. They never deceive or desert us in our hour of need like so many of our human friends, and the advantages once received from the reading of books remain with us throughout our lives. As we read the books of great person, we seem to see them appear before us. We seem to talk with them and they seem to instruct us through the medium of their books.

Reading the great poetry of the past we seem to be carried away to a kingdom of joy and forgetfulness, a kingdom where there is no care, no worry, and no anxiety. Reading books is also one way of passing our spare time. A person given to the reading of books can never find time hanging heavily on him. When you have time and no work to do take a book from the shelf and time will pass pleasantly. Reading also relieves us of our mental suffering. When one is struck down with sorrow he may, with a book in his hand, forget all his trouble in the comfort of his bedroom or under the shade of a tree.

Reading not only gives us pleasures, it also enriches our mind. Through it, we come to have a keener insight into life and its problems, and a lasting interest in our neighbors and surroundings. Life does not have a dull and monotonous aspect any longer but in every page, we come across fresh wonders and mysteries waiting for us.

We have, however, to be very careful in our selection of books to read. In the world of today, we find countless writers writing very large number of books-good, bad and indifferent. Due to the great number of books available for reading. It has become very difficult for us to choose what books to read and what to reject. The selection of proper books has now become a matter of great interest, as well as necessity to the reader.

Far more numerous are the people who do not take so much care in their selection of reading material. They generally read a book only to pass an idle hour without taking care of what they are reading. Moreover, the danger lies in the fact that there are not many good books available in comparison with the large amount of cheap books we find circulating around us.

People read any sort of books with object of killing time but in the process they end by killing their souls also. So in order to be a good reader one must be selective in one’s reading. We should only read books which enlighten us and elevate our spirits and those that spread happiness, harmony and brotherhood.