Intellectual Wellness: Read For Fun

In a world over-saturated with digital tools, social media, video entertainment, and nonstop media vying for our attention resource, books remain quietly calling out to us from our book shelves. Like the old friend who was slowly forgotten or pushed to the back because a newer, shinier friend came dancing into our lives with vibrant lights and attention-getting tactics that would shock any senses into abandon. Our books remain wisely quiet as though they know we will one day return to the tried and true value of letters making words, words making sentences, sentences making paragraphs, and paragraphs making meaning. Whether it be the printed version or the digital version of books, no video can provide the creative freedom for our minds to design our own worlds of the stories we absorb. Whenever a film adaptation of a book comes out, I am nearly always slightly disappointed that a character, once unique to my own imagination, has now been replaced with a Hollywood actor who understandably could never compete with the look, sound, and character I fell for - partly because the character was a masterpiece between the author’s words as the canvas and my mind as the finishing artist.

Yes, books are the original romance with other worlds and new ways of thinking. We must never forget them completely. This is why I feel so strongly that reading for fun is essential and fundamental to our Intellectual Wellness.

RECOMMENDATIONS

My favorite book of all time is the Bible because, through its words, I see everything else. I have many favorite authors, but the one who stands apart for where her words take me is Jane Austen.

Here are some of the most widely recognized titles (there are too many to outline or share). I’ve read many of these in school and for fun, but my list has just grown. I would like to experience all of these books. How many have you read?

QUOTES

I’ve compiled some quotes that sum up many of the emotions and thoughts I have toward reading and all that it can do for our Intellectual Wellness.

If you are reading in order to become a better reader, you cannot read just any book or article. You will not improve as a reader if all you read are books that are well within your capacity. You must tackle books that are beyond you, or, as we have said, books that are over your head. Only books of that sort will make you stretch your mind. And unless you stretch, you will not learn. —Mortimer Adler

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries. —Rene Descartes

A capacity, and taste, for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. —Abraham Lincoln

Reading is an act of civilization; it’s one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities. —Ben Okri

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. —Joseph Addison

Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know. —Alberto Manguel

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. —George R.R. Martin

In the end, we’ll all become stories. —Margaret Atwood

A book is a dream that you hold in your hand. —Neil Gaiman

No two persons ever read the same book. —Edmund Wilson

The only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library. —Albert Einstein

You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. —C.S. Lewis

Read for fun and be well!

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