| Books: Do they matter?

Books: Do they matter?

This week, Josh sent me an email with this question:

Why does reading books matter? I used to read a lot, but not as much anymore. I really just cannot determine if reading books is at all significant. I will concede that they can be entertaining, but is there any larger point that they have? I’m not so sure.

This was my response:

Why do books matter? I’m not sure that I’m an authority here, but I’ll offer my ideas in the hope that they make sense when read by another person.

I heard some time ago that the reason people couple up and are social is not because we need a partner, but because we need someone to witness our lives. In short, we need someone to know that we were here, that we existed. I think of reading in much the same way. We read in order to bear witness to someone’s words. Even in the most outrageous fiction, the reader is offering some kind of validation to the thoughts of the author. And what is the point of writing (or speaking, even) if there is no one to read it? Of course there is entertainment in what we read, but in the end, I read because I crave the understanding of other people’s lives. How did they live? What did they do? What did they believe? Reading gives me the validation that I’m not crazy and that other people might feel the same way I do.

Because it is a solitary action, reading is very personal. It can take you take you outside of reality and then just as quickly snap you back into it. However, as much as books and reading allow us to have an individual reaction, they can also bring people together. If friends can discuss why they relate to books (or any other media, I guess), it gives them the opportunity to show someone they existed, that they too had thoughts and feelings.

I do not consider myself to be a writer of any traditional sort, but in reading the books I read, maintaining this blog, and meeting the people who follow along, I have found a way to connect to other human beings. Therefore, I hope I have proven that what we all have to say is not only important, but quite valid. Basically, it’s proof that we exist.

So now I ask you: Do books matter? Why?

If somebody were to ask me what the most influential thing in my life was, I would immediately respond that it was books. Tenth grade is when I started to voraciously read and since then my life has followed a markedly different trajectory. Ever since then I have read as many books as I could on as many subjects as possible and I feel that I am a much better person for it.

Foremost, I feel that reading is one of the best things that people can do to improve themselves. I have always been a hugely vocal critic of formal education for many reasons. I feel that school never really taught me all that much and everything that I have learned that has been of any substance has been outside of the classroom, most of it coming from books. In the words of Mark Twain, “I have never let school interfere with my education”. Books have taught me innumerable things, and any real intelligence that I may have can directly be attributed to my self guided learning through books, not classes in high school or college.

The other, much more esoteric reason that I love reading, is that throughout life books are really the only thing that have consistently made sense to me. Everything has come and gone; friends, girls, jobs. But throughout it all there have always been books. Books are there when you are in a bad mood or when you are broke. You always have stories to help you cope with bad times and literary characters to identify with when you are sad. Books have the magical power to transport you to another world where your problems don’t exist.

I totally agree that reading is one of the most personal things that people can do, for me it’s almost akin to prayer. It’s a very personal and sometimes emotional thing and it’s definitely one of the most important things in my life. If I didn’t have books I can honestly say that I don’t know where my life would be. I would be a much more bored, unintelligent, and uninteresting person.