Why Do You Read? #LoveReading

· by · in Miscellaneous, Reminiscence of childhood. ·

“Perhaps the greatest reading pleasure has an element of self-annihilation. To be so engrossed that you barely know you exist”

– Ian McEwan

Don’t you think books are perfect as a form of entertainment? Not only for they come with no commercial breaks, but you can stop it whenever you want or continue for hours. You can construct imaginary dialogues with your favourite characters and fancy yourself to be the protagonist. A dedicated reader knows how it feels to be there in a decrepit house with the sleuth while he is pulling off to find the murderer! The excitement is so much that the female readers often make a mess of their impeccably manicured nails (experience speaks, you know).

Like any other habit, reading also needs practice. I’m not saying that you are bound to read a book you are not very fond of or which is incomprehensible to you, but one should read everything; classics as well as trash, it enables one to figure out the difference between the two and, how authors do it. It makes one a perfect reader eventually.

“The books I loved in childhood – the first loves – I’ve read so often that I’ve internalized them in some really essential way: they are more inside me now than out.”– Donna Tartt

As a child,  when I used to sit snugly in that old armchair of grandpa with a new book, happiness seemed to know no bounds. The smell of grandpa’s tobacco mixed with the heady smell of the new book had a mesmerizing effect on me. The big armchair devoured me completely and, I can still imagine my little self, cuddled down there on the chair. Books have so many sweet memories associated with them!

Perhaps everybody has read Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The arcane rituals the Count performs in the castle, the fangs of Dracula, his conniving ways of draining out blood from human bodies, the story which hasn’t lost its charm even after so many years. I read it when I was in my fourth standard. Not a usual book for a nine-year-old, but I was a voracious reader. The book eventually affected me with all its strength. I hobbled to go to the toilet alone immediately after sundown, I used to place a small cross under my pillow at night and, looked at any fair-complexioned lanky guy with great suspicion! I laugh now reminding those childish imaginations, but all these were very real to me at that time.

My first crush was a fictional character, too. Feluda, the super-sleuth from Satyajit Ray’s books had his own charms. His intelligence, his way of solving cases applying the grey matter to its fullest extent, had mesmeric effects on my teenaged heart. So much so that I could almost sense the smell of his Charminar cigarettes wafting along whenever I read the stories.

Even now, some books, some characters, have indelible effects on me I can feel them and, often I engross in a soliloquy with my favourite fictional characters, figments of my imagination. Kinda weird, no? But, that’s me, and there is no me without books.

“I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book”– JK Rowling

Happy reading!

My Very Own Cozy Corner

My Very Own Cozy Corner

91 responses to “Why Do You Read? #LoveReading”

  1. Yes, it’s absolutely true, we can’t resist the smell of new books. And we travel through it, with all the visuals we got from its words, characters, storytelling etc.
    When we read a book we are actually living it.

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  3. Pingback: AtoZ challenge Day13 (M for Maktub) | Smiles here & Smiles there·

  4. I love it when I read about someone’s love for reading!!
    Thank you for sharing the post 🙂
    It was fun to read about your experiences reading Dracula 🙂 I guess these days after twilight, kids will actually want vampires to visit them lol 😉

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  5. A wonderful post about reading! When we dissect the act of reading (or writing), its process and impact…then this meta-cognition helps us become better readers and writers. That said, although generally I read whatever I can lay my hands on, yet I have had phases in life when I hardly ever read anything literary. My career path took a different turn. Now I am back to it after a long time and need to catch up. Your article inspires me to do so.
    I enjoyed the discussion between you and Somali. You can write another post on kinds of ‘bhoots’ 🙂

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    • Thanks Alka, for expressing your thoughts on reading. Reading, (and writing too) is a continuous process which gets better with time. Really happy to that you found some inspiration to revive your habit of reading… 🙂

      Hehehe..yes…. there are so many different kinds of bhoots 😛 Maybe..someday..will write about them…

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  6. I hate books now. They damaged my eyes and ears but can’t live without them. After recovery, I stopped listening audiobooks but still reading with same pace despite warning of consequences. That’s why, I said addiction of book is also bad.

    Btw, loved the idol of Sarashwati Ji 🙂

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    • Yes, you said that on my recent posts on games. And, it really is…addiction of books is also an addiction that sometimes really proves to be harmful.

      Take care of your eyes, Ravish, as you are still recuperating.

      The sandstone statue of Devi Saraswati was a gift from my mom-in-law… glad you liked it. Thank you… 🙂

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  9. I believe that you have now understood that Uncle Dracula is better than some of the humans who are vampires who take life, soul and happiness instead of a little bit of blood 😀

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  12. Human mind is a strange machine! When I read that reference to Dracula, it brought back the whiff of those musty and disintegrated pages of the unabridged version of the book, which I read during my school days with a dictionary in hand! I had this horrible habit of commenting my own observations and doodling in the margin of any book, which caused me to be hated by every booklover. But, I loved this habit, as whenever I reread that book later, it brought back memories of the bygone past.

    Nowadays I don’t have a single hard copy but have around 300 books in my cellphone. How I miss those days, when I visited our friendly Raddiwala and got a second hand, cover less paperback edition of Adventures of Sherlock Holmes for Rs 50 after hard bargaining.

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    • I’m really happy to see how wonderfully the discussion on book reading is made here by book lovers. I come to know of so many habits and likings-disliking of you all 🙂
      The habit of doodling in the margin of the book is not a good one 😛 if it’s a library property. Otherwise, it’s okay.
      I read the unabridged version of Dracula much later and really enjoyed it. With time, the sense of fear with supernatural beings has been replaced by mortals with inhuman souls.
      Raddiwalas sometimes bring real good stuff!

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  13. Nice tribute to reading Maniparna :).. I think that is something which unites us all – the love to read and write. The dream house I am planning will have a big room with a huge rack full of books :), and maybe an old gramaphone to add to the aesthetics 🙂

    PS: Missed reading your posts. Now back on a holiday for about the next couple of weeks. Hope to be more regular 🙂

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  16. Reading was my craze once. Not so much in to reading novels now, but travel related stuffs yes. More with intention for info rather than relaxing. 😛 🙂 Good to know about your passion. 🙂

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  18. Isn’t it amazing to read books and relive them again and again and again. The way you have revealed your ‘love affair’ is commendable and far from scandalous…:)…..I love books too…from children’s books to folk tales to fiction as well as non-fiction to inspiration and what not. And the feel of the paper, the smell of the new and old books, the cozy corner of my room where I used to sit and read….what a memory..! Now, with two kids running around, I read a page, drop it, run the errands, secretly grab the book and read another page….:)

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  21. Reading is a passion for me like no other! No wonder the post struck a chord with me. I have had my share of crushes too on the characters. It was more like an obsession. Even my love for animals took origin from the pet dogs who were flaunted in Enid Blyton classics:)

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  22. I love second hand books. I love the ‘dog-eared’ page and sometimes the notes and doodles drawn around the page. I like to imagine who read it before me and where they sat when reading…. it like the book itself has a story 🙂 Thanks for sharing Maniparna

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  24. You included a JKR quote and as I was happily reading about reading, I was super-excited to see how it ended! 😀
    Reading is many things to different people at different times. Mostly it is an escape from reality and time traveling for me. But now, reading is the reward I give myself at the end of a hectic day.

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  25. good concept…….liked your perception….and agree with the #firstcrushfictional thing. 🙂

    btw hey,
    i write hindi poems……i write romance
    you may want to have a look

    authoreklavya.blogspot.in
    authoreklavya.wordpress.com
    PLEASE VISIT

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  28. The heady smell of new books, sitting curled up in the armchair, sofa or the bed to finish up a book,wearing a gurudwara kadha and keeping a iron key (well not a cross) under the pillow after reading a scary story from ‘shakchunnir keramoti’ (the name sounds so weird now) are things I can relate to. From Amar Chitra Katha, to Enid Blyton, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Agatha Christie, then books by Aynn Rand, Arundhuti Roy and Jhumpa Lahiri have been a great source of joy from time to time. Somehow, lately I haven’t been much reading books. This post of yours may give the needed nudge. 🙂

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  29. Hi Mani,
    What a wonderful way to capture the memories and talk about love for books! I can visualise your grandpa’s chair, with you cuddled there…that is how we can nurture the love for books. I didn’t have such a chair around me and never saw my grandpa’s face but I did create such a chair for my own kids and nephews and nieces, who still talk about those moments fondly and now I am trying to be the kind of grandma, I hope, my grandchildren would be talking about in their nostalgic moments…
    We all love books and I agree with you that they carry us along into the world that they create…happy reading and keep disseminating the love.

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  32. You know Maniparna…the reading habit in me was so irritating to my mom that I have hardly ventured into the kitchen to help her at all. Her repeated calls have always fallen on deaf ears and now I feel so bad about it!
    The quotes are very inspiring and my initiation into this magical world has been Enid Blyton and Hardy boys..sorry that i keep coming back to myself, it is solely due to the power of your post!.
    http://www.specs-buffy.blogspot.com

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  33. I love reading… And I agree with you… many books offer us new lens through which we can see life with new, different eyes… Or maybe with our same eyes, but with new glances…
    Beautiful post… thanks for sharing… love and best wishes. Aquileana🍓

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