How does reading make you feel?

[Patrick_Bateman]

Go...

[Jay on blues]

To be fairly simple: intelligent.

[Lulim]

That depends on the book I am reading really.

Presently, I am reading "The Corrections" by Jonathan Franzen, and I like it very much. It's very amusing in parts although it tells quite a sad story -- thats my first impression anyway, after some 100 pages.

Before that, I read a book (Peter Mayle: The Vintage Caper*) where the author tried to make up for the lack of a plot, and his nonexistent writing skills by endlessly reciting menus and wine lists, and that was quite exasperating and annoying.

__________________
* = title added only as a warning to everyone never to touch that book :eek2:

[David Lurie]

enraptured

[Abras]

If I read for too long at a time my eyes start to get strained and tired. Also, sometimes I have to use the restroom while I'm reading...although that could just be Nature calling in her usual way and have nothing to do with the book at all.

[Tallefred]

When I was younger, it used to make me feel cozy and happy. Now... I still enjoy it, but I really miss that feeling.

[Serena03]

Content and relaxed.

[the facade]

If it's a good read I will become completely enveloped by the book's universe and emotionally sway with its tidings.

[Iwanuschka]

absorbing and absorbed

[ladderandbucket]

I feel as if I am decorating the inside of my brain. There is a lot of empty space that needs to be filled :D

[gruntingslime]

Generally alternates between Nostalgic, Excited, Bored and Frustrated, depending what I'm reading.

[spookymulder93]

It makes me feel as if I'm doing something that could one day change my life.

[marcolfo]

like a cultural sponge

[Serena03]

'Spiritually' unified between the assimilation of two different worlds.

[Alexander III]

if its good lit, often a contained acid trip, if its bad lit, nervous and anxious and bored

[Aragorn Elessar]

My emotions are dependent upon the book.

[Propter W.]

I'm not sure it makes me feel anything. It allows me to escape. Escape what, you ask. I wouldn't know. It just transports me to the story away from my own story, so to speak.

[baaaaadgoatjoke]

stultified

[Phaedra's Love]

My world/existence stops and I enter the book's world as an audience (gosh I sound so pompous :()-- particularly if there is an element of surrealism in what I'm reading because it hurls me further away from reality. I like to read Murakami when I'm upset because it stops me from thinking too much about what's really going on in my life; it lets my tired brain take a break through :)

[LuggageFan]

The question is difficult to answer.

How about this: when I've finished a particularly good book, having cried or laughed or been moved in some way, I am always astounded that I hold in my hands nothing more than a pile of paper with ink marks on it. That PEOPLE can have an impact on other people in this way is almost magical to me. And when the book is like Dragon Tattoo, I feel like someone should canonize the author.

[katelbach]

I assume you mean the act of reading, rather than reading specific books.

And it makes me feel like my true self.

[blazeofglory]

If it is not for reading books I would not have been here with you chatting, talking, sharing, trading internationally.

Born of a backward setting I had transformed myself from what I am now intellectually and of course it is out of reading and reading.

What would have happened if I had not read books?

I would have been a peasant toiling from dawn to dust. Then you would brand me with my rural demeanor.

Reading made me what I am: educated, somewhat wealthy, sexy and a job holder.

Am I happier through my academic exaltation?

This is the most difficult question. What I am today is worsening me and I could have been much happier with my days without books and of course without cares

[hazelk]

I find that I am more content in myself, plus there is something extra special to look forward to = the next chapter.

[slicedclouds]

I get ecstatic, perhaps disturbed, I'm completely carried off into another world and will feel anger, fear, etc. just as real as if it where happening to me if the book is good. I get a mixture of disgust and frustration if the book is of poor quality. Reading in general makes me feel intellectual and better about myself.

[blazeofglory]

Reading is an obsession. I indulge in reading and I see a world of books and this fantasy in fact distract me from a real world and I see dreams. My dreams are woven of fairy tales wherein gnomes, angels and the like visit me and I get lost.

I get lost in books, and love to live with heaps of books all around. Books are dry things and yet I pass most of my time reading books. My head is filled with bookish things.

I was a mountain boy and lived in touch with nature and suddenly I came to a world of knowledge only take away myself from a world of beauty, nature, sensitivity, passion. I repent quite often.

However I am happy with my books and they give me a different gratification and it helped me financially, academically, socially or publicly.

Books enabled me to write books and I write and that gets me across a large audience and I can pour out my ideas to a wider section of society.

I enjoy reading despite the fact the nostalgia I had about my village gnaws on me

[MANICHAEAN]

To Those who love,

Without understanding;

To Those who understand,

Without loving;

And to Those,

Who, neither loving or understanding,

Are the Cause,

Why books are written.

[keilj]

The question is difficult to answer.

How about this: when I've finished a particularly good book, having cried or laughed or been moved in some way, I am always astounded that I hold in my hands nothing more than a pile of paper with ink marks on it. That PEOPLE can have an impact on other people in this way is almost magical to me. And when the book is like Dragon Tattoo, I feel like someone should canonize the author.


Well put

[African_Love]

'Spiritually' unified between the assimilation of two different worlds.

I can lose myself in the personalities, emotions and affairs of other people. To be honest, I like good movies and television shows for the same reason.

[FROADS]

I love reading..How does reading make me feel? mmmh..

Tough question, it depends, when I'm reading a novel I feel like I'm watching a movie. The characters and scenery immediately play like a film in my imagination, hard to believe but I also imagine a soundtrack to the climactic scenes, and that's how i feel like a "viewer", one might say. Of course just as there are bad movies there are also bad novels that completely bore me..

And just like after a night at the movies, where you feel motivated after watchin an underdog/Rocky like picture, sad after watching a depressing film, and entertained after watching a comedy is how I feel when I'm reading a book.

I hope textbooks don't apply cuz they bore me.

[lit.girl]

when i read book some time i feel i want to finish it very quick. Some time i don't understand the meaning of the words. So i have to read it 10 times to understand the word. I start reading very much every things in english to enhance and improve my english language. Because am arab and im studying English literature i have to read more. That why is hard time for me to read.

[SentimentalSlop]

When I read, usually when it's a good book soaked with heavy philosophy that makes one ought to shiver down to his bones, I feel a want to learn infinitely more about my own person so that I may better understand and love others. I fail to see the worth in a book that serves me only for my self-gratification, but I see much value in a book that inspires me to become more benevolent.

[Nate]

Hopefully interested or even spellbound, but often just bored