Why do you love the books you love?

[Vedrana]

In answering your question, I have to quote Jane Austen (albeit poorly), who said that, "Any person, be they man or woman, who does not take pleasure in a good novel must be intolerably stupid." I find it hard to disagree, because usually I don't get along with people who don't read.

I really like to read because it's a good form of entertainment, it's informative, and it gets you thinking. And it's always good for a conversation. :-) Sometimes I feel like people think I'm too old fashioned and behind with the times just because I prefer to read ("You prefer reading to cards, do you? That is very singular"- Pride and Prejudice), but I really like it. And if the authors write the stories, we might as well read them, right?

As soon as I pick up a good book that I enjoy, I am transported to the world created by the author, very much like Mhyrrmayde describes as being like a cinema. It is a lot like a film, actually, now that I think of it.

It's sort of hard to remember what it was that brought me to love reading so much, because all I can remember is that I learned to read, and then a whole world was opened to me, cliched as that sounds.

Anyway, that's why I read.

[Virgil]

In answering your question, I have to quote Jane Austen (albeit poorly), who said that, "Any person, be they man or woman, who does not take pleasure in a good novel must be intolerably stupid." I find it hard to disagree, because usually I don't get along with people who don't read.

I really like to read because it's a good form of entertainment, it's informative, and it gets you thinking. And it's always good for a conversation. :-) Sometimes I feel like people think I'm too old fashioned and behind with the times just because I prefer to read ("You prefer reading to cards, do you? That is very singular"- Pride and Prejudice), but I really like it. And if the authors write the stories, we might as well read them, right?

As soon as I pick up a good book that I enjoy, I am transported to the world created by the author, very much like Mhyrrmayde describes as being like a cinema. It is a lot like a film, actually, now that I think of it.

It's sort of hard to remember what it was that brought me to love reading so much, because all I can remember is that I learned to read, and then a whole world was opened to me, cliched as that sounds.

Anyway, that's why I read.

Well said too, Vendrana. You reminded me of how much I loved to read as a young boy. It was pretty much out of the ordinary in comparison to others I knew. I would love to read on my own volition. I would force my mother to take me to the library once a week. I couldn't have been more than seven or eight. Today I've amassed a large number of books in my own home. I never throw out a book, ever. I can't. My wife is frustrated with them being all over the place.

[AimusSage]

I agree with never throwing away a book, to me that would be like throwing away a part of myself, something I would regret for the rest of my life. Unfortunately I don't have nearly as many books as I would like, as the librarians always have me return the books I loan. They never like it when I return one late, not that that ever happens.

[The Unnamable]

LOL!
Unnamble, this could be the beginning.

“In my beginning is my end…In my end is my beginning.”
TS Eliot

[ClaesGefvenberg]

and when I do open the pages of something, my mind is focused not on the outer world of squalor and noise, but of some inner cinema, if you will, that is as deep and wide as any universe.

Well put. I can relate to that.

The books I really like all have that quality: They provide a sense of wonder, a feeling that what I read is really happening, and the outside world fades away.

Once, when I told a girl just how much I read, she simply stared at me, slowly shook her head and retorted: - God, what a boring life, sitting there with a bunch of books. Somehow, I think I failed to convey what I express above.

/Claes

[Dark Lady]

I think I would have to say that I like a book if it allows me to escape from this world for a little while but I love a book if it won't allow me to escape from it.

[danielrsmith]

I agree with Dark Lady completely, something doesn't have to be a great work of literature to be a good book. Take Harry Potter for instance, or even the DaVinci Code (god forbid) I've read them, and what's more i've enjoyed them because of their ability to captivate me and not let me go to sleep until 3am.

[Bookworm Cris]

I love the books I love.... because they make me think, see other people's lives (real or not, like mine or not), because they entertain me, or because they shock me. It´s like Xamonas Chegwe said (that list was really good), we like different books for different reasons, in different times. But the pleasure of reading is the same, even with books so different from one another. And even Da Vinci Code may be a good reading (I liked it!), just don't take it serious, it´s just for fun.

[subterranean]

it's usually because they carry out the pattern that matches our definition of (books)..."

Well, I don't really have any definition of "books that I must love to read". In some occasions, people's opinions are the reason why I read certain books, and yes, some become my all time fav books. But there are those which I found randomly and "fell deeply in love" with (Catch 22 is one of them). And why do I love them? Well, I think it's like eating something which is not only filled my stomach, made me healthy, and gave me energy, but also brought delicious tastes to my tounge. You get almost everything in one plate (book)

[rot]

they keep me sane.
they kindle the lives of my muses and, sometimes, makes them.

[Mary Sue]

I collect and read books---and love them---because a good book is a portal to another universe, really. Read a good book and you're inside someone else's head. You're able to see through someone else's eyes, and with a new and unique perspective you can take a "virtual reality" tour of somewhere else. And along the way you get to meet some fascinating new friends. PLUS if you're reading a Shakespeare or say, a Tolstoi, you have the added pleasure of language and the magic of words. What could be better than all that?

Other people may prefer other things: stamps, coins, jewelry, antique vases. But these other collectibles seem to me pretty one-dimensional and limited as compared to books!

[The Raven]

Mhirrmayde - That is absolutely beautifully said. Welcome to the forum.

And my turn to answer the question. There are several reasons why I love literature, and I should say I prefer quite old literature than contemporary one, whether the original language it was written in. But most importantly, I love the books I love because they have more than touched me, messed with my very guts, emotive novels that don't fall into ridiculous phrases or oversweetened happy endings. I love them because I can see in them reflections of a reality that either is so close to mine or it is so exotic that comes to be even more attractive. Mostly, the reason is that whether any of the previously mentioned features, I find verosimile, believable human beings put into situations which cause them to make crucial decissions, and might end up doing the opposite to all reason or benefit (illogically from an external point of view), but is not it what some of us do sometimes, when pushed into unexpected situations in which our very deep feelings are involved?
I love mankind, and human nature, and every expression of art, is an actual evidence that there is such so-called human soul (for me). So I love the books I love because they help me find it, and remind me of it everytime I get to them for a re-reading. These are the ones I read over and over, some even at certain times of year, although I'm on a steady search for new authors, books, plays, that shake me the way Pound, Faulkner, Kafka, Joyce, Hawthorne, Eliot, Hemingway, Shakespeare, Borges, Cortázar, García Márquez, Orwell, and Rulfo, have done.

[amalia1985]

I enjoy reading all genres, but what applies to me is history,actually. Why? I haven't really though about it...Psychology, perhaps...

[Nossa]

I read everything, but I 'love' to read things by Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde and recently Khaled Hosseini. I love how they put thier characters together to give you a vivid image that you can picture in your mind, and for me it becomes a three dimensions pictures, cuz I can almost see them moving and talking in front of me.

But generaly speaking, I love reading cuz sometimes it feels that it is the best company you can ever have. You can live hundreds of lives, see different places and meet various people through the pages of any book. I love it cuz it simply makes me want more in life.

[Dark Muse]

The books I priamarily read above all else are historical fiction, and I love them more than anything becasue I am a bit of a romantic, and I have something of a love affair with the past. I love being transported into these long ago times and imagine how people might have lived then and watch them come to life in thier lives on the page. Of course logicaly I know that living in many of those times would be far from glamorus, and there would be a lot of hardship and no true conveinces, as well as much danger, but at the sametime, sometimes I imagine such ages would suit me better then the modern age so I live vicarruously through the characters in my books.