book reading is a dying phenomenon of life nowadays essay

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Essay on “Book reading is a dying phenomenon of life nowadays.” Throw light on the factors responsible for it and give suggestions for its improvement

Essay – book reading is a dying phenomenon of life nowadays.

Book reading is a dying phenomenon of life nowadays Essay: Books: considered as the best friend of man is seemingly at the death bed. While intellect is on rise with days, the medium to record those and sharing of thoughts has changed in this 21 st Century. Words are increasing, dictionaries are becoming bulkier, but the writings are not necessarily found in the written medium that has been there since ages. While the first printed book was done in China in the 9 th Century called Diamond Sutra containing sacred Buddhist texts, the first mass produced book was the Gutenberg’s Bible. The Bible is till now the most printed book in the world. With so many prints happening each year, why are we saying that book reading is reducing day by day?

Books, and by that I mean physical hard copies have a different feel altogether in terms of deep, sustained engagement with an idea or story. Reading books is both a skill and a habit. New readers feel more lethargic towards reading, but if they manage to continue with the practice, reading becomes a habit. The person feels more and more intrigued and habituated to books and feels like reading about new things and explore more. But according to current trends as seen in the United States of America, book reading has reduced by about 17% than the levels seen in the 1990s. The reason is mostly attributed to the rise of various forms of media. Though traditional news media through television and radio was popular at that time, people mostly from upper and upper middle classes were able to afford the best of those. Even then, these medium offered quite less than what people got from magazines and books, and these also became sorts of memoirs and collections for those who could afford the books on their own. Libraries were seen running on full fledge with people issuing books from all genre, and even came for magazines having information regarding jobs and opportunities.

Keeping aside the books issued for school curriculum, India has also seen reduction of book readers. With the advent of 2000s and beyond, computers and mobiles became more common in households, and so did social media with time. This has become a bane for books and their survival in this competitive world. In the world of TikTok and Instagram reels, a thirty second to one minute video is more of an attention grabber than a book of hundred pages which might take a day or two for a newbie to complete reading. Facebook and blog websites became excellent sites to share anecdotes and important life lessons. Magazines became digital with added footages of favourite stars. E-books are more common than hard copies since they take no extra storage in one’s home.

So the debate continues: is book reading indeed dying or has people changed medium of information gathering? And the answer is that gathering information online is not equivalent to the way a person holds a book in his hands, goes in his own world undistracted from the happenings of the present. He does not feel like scrolling through social media every two minutes. He has more concentration and patience. He processes the information given in the book in his hands without extra external feeding of ideologies. He can have his own thoughts, may be different from the other readers. Also, he is not in the continuous cycle of justifying his thoughts and getting shame on social media. Thus, traditional way of book reading becomes imperative even in this world of information overload.

Book reading as a practice has momentarily revived during the CoViD-19 Pandemic that shook the world. People were idle in their homes and after a few days and months of binge watching videos, turned towards books. Self-help books topped the selling lists. With the world opening up again, we as a society need to promote traditional ways of reading for our betterment. Promoting book clubs, introducing weekly discussions in schools where students share their thoughts on a selected book become excellent ways to revive the process. New learners should take it slow by starting off with short stories and eventually making way to genres they are most interested about.

Also See: How your teacher has influenced your life Essay

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Your right to know Monday, May 20, 2024

Arts, Culture & Books

Decline in book-reading culture

* Teachers not alone are to be blamed for this sorry state of affairs, even parents never encourage their children to read books other than text books

February 14, 2020

Reading books is a globally recognized intellectual and cultural activity, which keeps the brain healthy and alive, but unfortunately the culture of reading books is almost becoming non-existent in our society, the reasons for this sorry state of affairs are numerous, one main contributing factor is the prevailing poverty the graph of which is moving upward with every passing day, the other predominant factor is our education system, in which the students are forced to learn everything by heart, and a very common believe among the students is that the best and the easiest way to get good marks in the examinations is to learn by heart everything from the “key books” , while this is a bitter reality that any student writing anything different from that as written in the “key” books hardly gets passing marks. Not only this the teachers never appreciate any student citing from any other book other than the prescribed text books, reason being the knowledge of the teachers most of the times is limited and he or she is ashamed of accepting her lack of knowledge.

In the early days or to be more precise, 70 or 80 years back when the resources of individuals were limited, book reading was considered as one of the basic requirements like eating food or drinking water. Those unable to buy books were able to read books of their choice and liking from libraries spread all over a certain locality at quite affordable rates to be charged on daily, weekly or monthly basis

Teachers not alone are to be blamed for this sorry state of affairs, even parents never encourage their children to read books other than text books, because they are only interested in getting their kids high marks required for getting admissions in the professional colleges.

In the early days or to be more precise seventy or eighty years back when the resources of individuals were limited the book reading was considered as one of the basic requirements like eating food or drinking water. Those unable to buy books were able to read books of their choice and liking from libraries spread all over a certain locality at quite affordable rates to be charged on daily, weekly or monthly basis. It was a must practice in every house hold to encourage the reading habits among the children by providing them story books and monthly magazines. In those days the status symbol was one’s collection of books and how well he/she was read, and not the cars model or the size of bungalow and the branded clothes. One widely read was considered as most respectable, creditable and estimable in the society. This was the case in almost in every society and culture. History is witness to the fact that the scholars, thinkers, philosophers, writers and poets had a very high and esteemed position in the courts of kings and monarchs and always held a very distinctive and important position in the corridors of power. The elites were those who had the knowledge of art, literature, history, politics, philosophy, religion and not the ones having heaps of wealth. People used to be proud of their collection of books and the size of their own library.

I remember my child hood when we were always encouraged to read books and magazines by our parents, when we ourselves were unable to read it was a matter of routine of my mother to read out stories for us from different books and magazines that was to induce a habit of reading.

Hum Aysaee Kul Kitabayeen Qabil E Zabti Samjahtay Hain

Kay Jin Ko Parh Ker Bachay Bap Ko Khabti Samajhtay Hain

(All such books must be confiscated, which make children think their fathers as insane)

Not only the books and magazines for the young were in abundance but the literarily magazines and periodicals were also of great value and very popular and available at an affordable price like Naqoosh, Fanoon, Adabi Dunia, Saqi and many more. With the rise of cost of living, the reading of good literature also became costly the result being culture of reading books dying rapidly at a very alarming rate. Genuine readers especially the young generation finds it next to impossible to buy a book of their favourite author or the subject of their interest because of the sky high prices of the reading material. In our neighbouring country India books are available on much a reduced prices and are easily affordable to almost every segment of society, where as in Pakistan even the price of newspapers is so high that a lay man is left with no option but to read cheap evening papers offering no serious or informative material.

Another major reason of decline in reading habits is the invention of internet, as all books and magazines are easily available free of cost just on one click of the computers key boards, the worst aspect of the electronic reading material is not only that all sorts of reading material even harmful for the minds of young and immature is available but long sitting in front of computers badly effects the eyesight also, and as Akbar Allahbadi said they can’t be confiscated so the new generation has started considering their “fathers insane”.

The city of Lahore is famous for its old books shops, and since decades the weekly bazaar of old books at Mall Road is the hallmark of the city, but gradually the number of book buyers is reducing over here also the reason being the high prices and lack of facilities. If the city administration could very proudly establish a food street, why can’t they set up a “Books Street” where the book lovers can find out the books of their choice without searching it in the soaring heat, dust and filth, as is the case with the Sunday bazaar of old books in Lahore?

All over Pakistan one can notice a new food outlet appearing at every locality, but one hardly finds a new book shop coming up, we can see our youth wasting money on junk food, where as our book shops presents a deserted look. Mr. Z A Bhutto, himself highly read and lover of books tried and introduced a system of printing the books on cheaper prices, even separate sections were created at all book foundations outlets for children with latest books and magazines available to read free of cost. I remember visiting those children reading corners after my school, and what a fun it was to read Urdu and English story books free of cost in a comfortable atmosphere, but with his unfortunate and tragic departure from the power corridors of the country also resulted in the elimination of that reduced price books culture.

A very positive aspect is the annual Literary festivals in different cities of Pakistan, in which one can notice participation of young girls and boys in large numbers, taking keen interest in books and discussions on literary subjects this clearly indicates that our youth are still in search of good reading material but being out of their reach due to high prices opt for on line reading. The new generation takes keen interest in Urdu poetry not only in big cities but in remote areas, I have come across many youngsters who had never been to a higher school, reading Faiz, Faraz, Muneer Niazi, Nasir Kazmi, Parveen Shakir, even Ghalib, Mir and Momin, but again the cost of their poetic interest is so high that they opt for on line versions of these giants of Urdu language.

Our youth can compete their counterparts only if they are well read and this can become possible only if the books are easily available to them at nominal prices.

Another unfortunate aspect and a surprising one is that people just to show that they are lovers of books mainly belonging from the new brand of riches buy books and exuberant prices from the book shops mostly from old book shops and fill up their book shelves in the “Study” at times one can find dozens of same book of same author, I myself was told by an old book seller that the “elites” coming up in latest model cars buy same book in dozens for their newly constructed house in Defence.

The government should seriously think on this subject before it’s too late and reduce the price of paper and the printing material so that the books are in easy reach of genuine readers along with it our media should also come forward to highlight the importance of reading and arrange book festivals along with the songs and dance festivals.

The writer is a former marine engineer. He can be reached at [email protected]

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• The Art of Optimism

Stop Saying Books Are Dead. They’re More Alive Than Ever

“The book is dead,” is a refrain I hear constantly. I’ll run into people on the subway, in a taxi, in an airport, or wherever I might be and when I tell them what I do, they ask me “do people even still read anymore?” This simple question implies the very work I do at the National Book Foundation may not be worthwhile—or even possible. It’s generally a casual statement, a throwaway remark, a comment repeated so often that it’s taken as fact. The book is obviously dead, or at least dying, right?

False. When people tell me that fighting for books is fighting a futile battle, that’s the moment my optimism kicks in. That’s the moment I power up my very deepest belief in literature. A person who wants to challenge or lament the death of reading with me is a person looking for a fight and, I think , a person who wants to be convinced otherwise. This gives me hope. I’m here for this fight.

Not long ago, I came across an article with the headline “Reading is a rapidly depleting form of entertainment,” which cited recent findings from Pew Research Center that 24% of Americans didn’t read a book in 2017. Now, what I saw was that 76% of Americans did read a book. The reality is that if 76% of any population is participating in a single activity then you are surrounded by people doing that very thing. The article said that books are dying; the research said—to me, at least—that we are a nation of readers.

The glass is far more than half full. After more than a decade of decline, the number of independent bookstores is on the rise — despite the dominance of online retailers. The American Booksellers Association, which promotes independent bookstores, says its membership grew for the ninth year in a row in 2018. Sales of physical books have increased every year since 2013, and were up 1.3% in 2018 compared to the previous year.

See the 2019 Optimists issue , guest-edited by Ava DuVernay.

Of course, we know that everyone doesn’t read, and we didn’t need a poll to tell us. But we do need to better understand who reads and why and how to encourage them to read more and more joyfully. We need to figure out who has been left out of the conversation around books and welcome them into the fold with open arms. And so the job of people like me is to widen the audience and make sure that books remain steadfastly relevant to our culture. At the Foundation, we bring authors from around the nation to meet would-be readers on their home turf, distribute books to young people living in housing projects, and celebrate diverse, wide-ranging, excellent work on our largest stage at the National Book Awards.

My colleagues at publishers, libraries, bookstores and literary non-profits share these challenges. We all need to figure out how to make more seats at the table. Our job is to build readers. And while some might consider this work an uphill journey, we do this every day because the profound pleasures of a good book are for everyone, everywhere.

Storytelling is fundamental to human beings. It is how we explore and make sense of this world and understand one another. Because books absorb us and harness our imaginations, they are an essential medium for storytelling—as well as a satisfying one. The idea that these benefits and pleasures are for a limited subset of any given population is dangerous. Books are not exclusive.

Literature strengthens our imagination. If we all have the tools to try to imagine a better world, we’re already halfway there. Each day, there are more books being published that speak to every kind of person, from every kind of place. And I believe readers can be built—because I know we have an unlimited number of invitations to this party.

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• Importance Of Reading Essay

Importance of Reading Essay

500+ words essay on reading.

Reading is a key to learning. It’s a skill that everyone should develop in their life. The ability to read enables us to discover new facts and opens the door to a new world of ideas, stories and opportunities. We can gather ample information and use it in the right direction to perform various tasks in our life. The habit of reading also increases our knowledge and makes us more intellectual and sensible. With the help of this essay on the Importance of Reading, we will help you know the benefits of reading and its various advantages in our life. Students must go through this essay in detail, as it will help them to create their own essay based on this topic.

Importance of Reading

Reading is one of the best hobbies that one can have. It’s fun to read different types of books. By reading the books, we get to know the people of different areas around the world, different cultures, traditions and much more. There is so much to explore by reading different books. They are the abundance of knowledge and are best friends of human beings. We get to know about every field and area by reading books related to it. There are various types of books available in the market, such as science and technology books, fictitious books, cultural books, historical events and wars related books etc. Also, there are many magazines and novels which people can read anytime and anywhere while travelling to utilise their time effectively.

Benefits of Reading for Students

Reading plays an important role in academics and has an impactful influence on learning. Researchers have highlighted the value of developing reading skills and the benefits of reading to children at an early age. Children who cannot read well at the end of primary school are less likely to succeed in secondary school and, in adulthood, are likely to earn less than their peers. Therefore, the focus is given to encouraging students to develop reading habits.

Reading is an indispensable skill. It is fundamentally interrelated to the process of education and to students achieving educational success. Reading helps students to learn how to use language to make sense of words. It improves their vocabulary, information-processing skills and comprehension. Discussions generated by reading in the classroom can be used to encourage students to construct meanings and connect ideas and experiences across texts. They can use their knowledge to clear their doubts and understand the topic in a better way. The development of good reading habits and skills improves students’ ability to write.

In today’s world of the modern age and digital era, people can easily access resources online for reading. The online books and availability of ebooks in the form of pdf have made reading much easier. So, everyone should build this habit of reading and devote at least 30 minutes daily. If someone is a beginner, then they can start reading the books based on the area of their interest. By doing so, they will gradually build up a habit of reading and start enjoying it.

Frequently Asked Questions on the Importance of Reading Essay

What is the importance of reading.

1. Improves general knowledge 2. Expands attention span/vocabulary 3. Helps in focusing better 4. Enhances language proficiency

What is the power of reading?

1. Develop inference 2. Improves comprehension skills 3. Cohesive learning 4. Broadens knowledge of various topics

How can reading change a student’s life?

1. Empathy towards others 2. Acquisition of qualities like kindness, courtesy

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Counselling

Are Books Dying? Is Reading Dying Trend?

Print books will not go extinct in the near future. Instead, e-books and audiobooks will make reading more accessible.

In 2022, the world is more technologically advanced than it has ever been. Despite new advancements being made in health, lifestyle, and entertainment, reading (as a leisurely activity) is still persisting.

However, in today’s world, reading can take many different forms such as e-books and audiobooks.

Below are the real reasons why people still enjoy reading paper books, the likelihood of print books disappearing in the future, as well as the ways you can fit reading into your lifestyle!

What's Included in This Post

Are books dying industry?

Reading books is on the decline, because people tend to look for more passive types of entertainment. However, books themselves, likely won’t disappear entirely, at least not anytime soon.

Are Reading Levels Going Down?

The statistics would suggest that reading (as a pastime or leisure activity) is generally on the decline. This is largely because in recent years, the advancement of technology, streamable media, smart devices and phones have massively occupied society’s attention and diverted it away from reading.

When you look at the data, however, reading has far more benefits than consuming media does. Studies have shown that reading strengthens the neural connections in the brain (specifically those associated with communication and language) . In addition, reading can improve concentration, increase vocabulary, and ward off against cognitive decline.

So why do people tend to prefer watching TV, movies, or consuming other types of media as opposed to reading?

Because watching TV, movies, or streaming music is a largely passive activity that doesn’t require much effort on the part of the viewer.

In today’s jam-packed world, people want to come home from a long day of work and settle down to do something relaxing.

In addition, people very rarely only watch one TV episode, or movie. Society has made “binge-watching,” the act of watching more than one episode, movie, or streamable media in one sitting, acceptable (and even popular).

Binge-watching, or binge-consumption of media can wreak havoc on our brain by continually turning on the chemicals in our brain associated with addiction and pleasure .

In addition, research conducted in 2013 at Tohoku University in Japan found that “the more TV the kids watched, parts of their brain associated with higher arousal and aggression levels became thicker. The frontal lobe also thickened, which is known to lower verbal reasoning ability.”

Will Paper Books Be Gone in a Few Years?

Hard copy books still provide value that many people continue to appreciate.

According to BBC.com , “Books themselves, however, likely won’t disappear entirely, at least not anytime soon. Like woodblock printing, hand-processed film and folk weaving, printed pages may assume an artisanal or aesthetic value. Books meant not to be read but to be looked at – art catalogues or coffee table collections – will likely remain in print form for longer as well.”

People continue to buy books to add to their personal collection, host reading clubs, and check-out books from public libraries.

In addition, the used book and re-sell market is gaining popularity as more and more people become environmentally-conscious.

Lastly, the act of giving and receiving books as a gift continues to be a practice that is accepted and valued by many cultures across the globe.

Will E-books Become More Popular than Print Books?

Yes, e-books will likely grow in their popularity in the coming years. According to Kitaboo.com , an important reason that e-books or audiobooks have grown in popularity is the convenience they offer – eBooks are portable and lightweight, making it easy to carry around. Other reasons include:

Accessibility

E-books that are downloaded to smart devices, phones, or tablets can be taken anywhere. In addition, most don’t require an internet connection to be read.

When compared to carrying around books that have physical weight, people who have an active lifestyle and are on-the-go may prefer the convenience and ease of access of e-books.

Easy Content Updates

For authors and publishers, digital copies of their books allow for content updates to be made easily through digital updates. T his reduces the waste associated with printing books with edited or re-published content.

Shareable Content

The social feature of ebooks allows for almost instant social interaction. E-book readers can share books with multiple people at one time, and view their comments or opinions via a smart device.

When compared to exchanging books amongst friends in real time, for example, sharing e-books can be a faster mode of communication .

Augmented Reality Experience

The advancement of tech has made reading e-books a much more immersive experience by bringing to life text, images, and videos. Readers can view a computer-generated 3D model of the image, which makes reading and learning a much more immersive experience.

Easy on the Eyes

Most smart devices on the market today come with display and accessibility features that adjust the brightness and readability of e-books based on the time of day. This is especially helpful for those who like to read at night, as it reduces the strain on your eyes through its customization functions.

Interactive Elements

Accessibility features like a “read-aloud” feature makes the e-book experience more inclusive. For the visually-impaired, most smart devices on the market today allow for text, images, and videos to be read aloud or transcribed to provide accurate and real time context.

In addition, e-books are interactively functional because they allow for embeddable media or content. For example, external links can be embedded within text or images and can be accessed simultaneously to the reading to maximize the user experience.

E-book readers can also bookmark certain pages or search words to take them to the desired page or section almost immediately.

Environmental Awareness

E-books cut down on the waste associated with printing books. When up to 300,000 books are published yearly in the United States alone , the impact of purchasing books on the environment (specifically on trees) cannot be ignored.

When you choose to read your books on your digital devices, you may help to reduce your individual carbon footprint.

Large-scale Affordability

For both the publisher and reader, e-books may be the more affordable option. For the author, there is reduced cost when it comes to printing, packaging, and shipping of books.

Lower costs can also be said for the reader; when you purchase an e-book, you receive it instantly and don’t have to pay the additional tax or shipping as you would when purchasing a book in- store or online.

Based on their convenience and accessibility, it is very likely that more and more people will choose e-books over print in the future.

Should You Read Books In Print or Digitally?

The answer to whether you should read books digitally or the old-fashioned way boils down to your preferences. As explored thus far, both methods have their unique benefits.

If you have an active lifestyle and would like reading to be a seamless step in your routine, consider e-books for their convenience.

A large number of people prefer to read through audiobooks. In fact, the annual rate of growth for audiobooks is even surpassing the general media and entertainment annual market growth rate, with the former clocking in at 25-30% as opposed to 4% ( Deloitte Insights ).

If you enjoy the tactical nature of reading print books, and don’t mind carving out sections of your day to curl up with a book and highlight sentences or passages that resonate with you, consider sticking with hard cover books.

So, is reading going to die?

To summarize, reading will likely not become extinct anytime soon. Books are the backbone of society, and may just be transformed into more accessible packages such as in the case of audiobooks or e-books.

The next time you want to consume any kind of media, do yourself (and your brain) a favor by picking up that book or e-reader!

Why Books here to stay

Related posts:

• Slow Readers, Don’t Feel Bad. Speed Reading isn’t Good…
• How to Read 1 Book a Week (Without Effort)
• 7 Great Reasons You Should Read “in Search of a Lost Time”
• 10 Best Books on How to be Funny in any Situation
• What’s the difference between “I have chosen” and “I chose”?

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Friday essay: a real life experiment illuminates the future of books and reading

Lecturer, RMIT University

Independent artist / Lecturer (adjunct), RMIT University

Disclosure statement

Andy Simionato is founder and editor of Atomic Activity Books, and is a lecturer at the School of Design, RMIT University.

Karen ann Donnachie is founder and editor of Atomic Activity Books, an independent, experimental publishing concern.

RMIT University provides funding as a strategic partner of The Conversation AU.

View all partners

Books are always transforming. The book we hold today has arrived through a number of materials (clay, papyrus, parchment, paper, pixels) and forms (tablet, scroll, codex, kindle).

The book can be a tool for communication, reading, entertainment, or learning; an object and a status symbol.

The most recent shift, from print media to digital technology, began around the middle of the 20th century. It culminated in two of the most ambitious projects in the history of the book (at least if we believe the corporate hype): the mass-digitisation of books by Google and the mass-distribution of electronic books by Amazon .

The survival of bookshops and flourishing of libraries (in real life) defies predictions that the “ end of the book ” is near. But even the most militant bibliophile will acknowledge how digital technology has called the “idea” of the book into question, once again.

To explore the potential for human-machine collaboration in reading and writing, we built a machine that makes poetry from the pages of any printed book. Ultimately, this project attempts to imagine the future of the book itself.

A machine to read books

Our custom-coded reading-machine reads and interprets real book pages, to create a new “ illuminated ” book of poetry.

The reading-machine uses Computer Vision and Optical Character Recognition to identify the text on any open book placed under its dual cameras. It then uses Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing technology to “read” the text for meaning, in order to select a short poetic combination of words on the page which it saves by digitally erasing all other words on the page.

Armed with this generated verse, the reading-machine searches the internet for an image – often a doodle or meme, which someone has shared and which has been stored in Google Images – to illustrate the poem.

Once every page in the book has been read, interpreted, and illustrated, the system publishes the results using an online printing service. The resulting volume is then added to a growing archive we call The Library of Nonhuman Books .

From the moment our machine completes its reading until the delivery of the book, our automated-art-system proceeds algorithmically – from interpreting and illuminating the poems, to pagination, cover design and finally adding the endmatter. This is all done without human intervention. The algorithm can generate a seemingly infinite number of readings of any book.

The following poems were produced by the reading-machine from popular texts:

deep down men try there he’s large naked she’s even while facing anything.

from E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey

how parties popcorn jukebox bathrooms depressed shrug, yeah? all.

from Bret Easton Ellis’ The Rules of Attraction

Oh and her bedroom bathroom brushing sending it garter too face hell.

from Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s

My algorithm, my muse

So what does all this have to do with the mass-digitisation of books?

Faced with growing resistance from authors and publishers concerned with Google’s management of copyright, the infoglomerate pivoted away from its primary goal of providing a free corpus of books (a kind of modern day Library of Alexandria ) and towards a more modest index system used for searching inside the books Google had scanned. Google would now serve only short “snippets” of words highlighted on the original page.

Behind the scenes, Google had identified a different use for the texts. Millions of scanned books could be used in a field called Natural Language Processing . NLP allows computers to communicate with people using everyday language rather than code. The books originally scanned for humans were made available to machines for learning, and later imitating, human language.

Algorithmic processes like NLP and Machine Learning hold the promise (or threat) of deferring much of our everyday reading to machines. History has shown that once machines know how to do something, we generally leave them to it . The extent to which we do this will depend on how much we value reading.

If we continue to defer our reading (and writing) to machines, we might make literature with our artificially intelligent counterparts. What will poetry become, with an algorithm as our muse?

We already have clues to this: from the almost obligatory use of emojis or Japanese Kaomoji (顔文字) as visual shorthand for the emotional intent of our digital communication, to the layered meanings of internet memes, to the auto-generation of “ fake news ” stories. These are the image-word hybrids we find in post-literate social media.

To hide a leaf

Take the book, my friend, and read your eyes out, you will never find there what I find.

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Spiritual Laws

Emerson’s challenge highlights the subjectivity we bring to reading. When we started working on the reading-machine we focused on discovering patterns of words within larger bodies of texts that have always been there, but have remained “hidden in plain sight”. Every attempt by the reading-machine generated new poems, all of them made from words that remained in their original positions on the pages of books.

The notion of a single book consisting of infinite readings is not new. We originally conceived our reading-machine as a way of making a mythical Book of Sand , described by Jorge Luis Borges in his 1975 parable.

Borges’ story is about the narrator’s encounter with an endless book which continuously recombines its words and images. Many have compared this impossible book to the internet of today. Our reading-machine, with the turn of each page of any physical book, calculates combinations of words on that page which, until that moment, have been seen, but not consciously perceived by the reader.

The title of our early version of the work was To Hide a Leaf. It was generated by chance when a prototype of the reading-machine was presented with a page from a book of Borges’ stories. The complete sentence from which the words were taken is:

Somewhere I recalled reading that the best place to hide a leaf is in a forest.

The latent verse our machine attempts to reveal in books also hides in plain sight, like a leaf in a forest; and the idea is also a play on a page being generally referred to as a “leaf of a book”.

Like the Book of Sand, perhaps all books can be seen as combinatorial machines . We believed we could write an algorithm that could unlock new meanings in existing books, using only the text within that book as the key.

Philosopher Boris Groys described the result of the mass-digitisation of the book as Words Without Grammar , suggesting clouds of disconnected words.

Our reading-machine, and the Library of Nonhuman Books it is generating, is an attempt to imagine the book to come after these clouds of “words without grammar”. We have found the results are sometimes comical, often nonsensical, occasionally infuriating and, every now and then, even poetic.

The reading-machine will be on display at the Melbourne Art Book Fair in March and will collect a Tokyo Type Directors Club Award in April. Nonhuman Books are available via Atomic Activity Books .

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Dying to Read: Reflections on the Ends of Literacy

2020, New Literary History

I choose my title “dying to read” for two reasons: first, to consider those lifeworlds—those ways of experiencing, sensing, and being—seemingly eclipsed by the rise of modern conceptions of literacy; and second, to consider the relation between the novel and death itself—that is, death as a sort of literary limit, the horizon of the possible testimonial, and the experiential limit of what can be narrated. It is with this in mind that I address an alternate plotline for the history of the novel. At the boundary between literacy and illiteracy is the condition of the possibility of the novel itself. If we understand reading to be implicated in social transformations such as schooling, libraries, and print culture, then how might we understand the passing of forms eclipsed by a new literary regime? The essay here provides a reading of Taha Hussein's "Call of the Curlew" to consider narrational limits and unnovelizable lives. At the limits of novelization is a never-ending story of a persistent past with lingering forms of life and language that continue to haunt the supposedly modern present. It is this story that is of interest to me here, one that is refracted through the move from illiteracy to literacy—an inquiry into what we might call the horizon of the literary.

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This article examines the interruption of the phenomenological experience of reading caused by an encounter with a particularly striking sentence or passage. More specifically, the text interprets the passage of language from text to reader as a moment of quotation whereby language is inscribed within the register of biological life. Drawing on the work of Blanchot and Benjamin the article suggests that this capture of a textual fragment, its transfer into the reader’s memory, simultaneously challenges and reaffirms the violence of conceptuality Hegel identified at the heart of language.

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Three times I rushed, and my heart urged me to hold her, and three times she flew from my hands like a shadow or even a dream.—Homer, The Odyssey 11.206–08.To speak of the future of literary criticism is always to speak of the future of literature, which is a mode of language and an institution whose very being essentially touches on the possibility and fragility of its own future. “The fragility of literature,” as Richard Klein suggests, “its susceptibility to being lost,” is at the heart of all literary writing, which emerges from the absence of a “real referent” and thus sustains itself through its reference to other texts, to the archive of literary writing that is made up of figures and other literary articulations that allow us to read. Klein reminds us, citing Jacques Derrida, that literary texts may always disappear: not only because they may be forgotten but also because they are susceptible to the erasure of the archive, to apocalyptic destruction, and to the collective lo...

Massimo Leone

Roland Barthes’s famous essay on the “Death of the Author” inaugurated an intense reflection on the progressive dwindling of the importance of the traditional biographic idea of ‘author’ in the activity of receiving and interpreting a text, especially a literary one. In the new epistemic era favored by the emergence and affirmation of structuralism, the meaning of a text was, indeed, no longer seen as stemming from an individual agency, but from the social dimensions of language and culture. As digital communication is progressively supplanting every form of non-digital meaning transmission, though, present-day semiospheres are confronted with a different scenario: on the one hand, ‘empirical' authors are actually becoming more and more prominent, meaning that audiences are starving for non-digital and ‘auratic’ experiences of encounter with meaning, minding more meeting with authors, for instance, than reading their novels; on the other hand, given the easiness of meaning production with digital technology, the same cultures are going through a progressive ‘agony of the reader’: individuals are so intent in creating new particles of meaning, with impatient and daily frenzy, that they never become patient readers of other people’s meaning creations, especially if these challenge the instantaneousness that characterizes the contemporary digital communication. The shortness of present-day meaning creation and its lack of audience is bound to change the entire semiosphere. The essay aims at foreseeing some of these changes, pinpointing one the main features of Narcissism in the digital era.

Margit Sutrop, The Death of the Literary Work, Philosophy and Literature, Volume 18, Number 1, April 1994, pp. 38-49

Margit Sutrop

Curiously, there has been a lot of discussion about the death of the author but the death of the literary work has hardly been resisted. It has been taken for granted that literary work closes itself on a signifed, that the work is closed, finished object which hides its meaning. In this article I show that there are good reasons to doubt this claim. In the first part of the article I argue that the literary work has lost its content because the notion of the text has has such an important extension. Many reader-oriented critics are convinced that every text has its meaning only in reading. As the meaning is produced, assembled and constituted in the reading process, it is always subjective, individual, plural. The literary work becomes the victim of the text and will be sidelined. In the second part of the article I will compare the phenomenological literary theory of the Polish aesthetician Roman Ingarden and the reader-response theory (reception aesthetics) of the German literary theorist Wolfgang Iser. I will focus on how Iser will make an important extension of the notion of the text - in the spirit of Barthes- at the same time giving the notion of the literary work a totally new content.

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This article looks into the evolution of books and paradigms of reading in the last approximately three hundred years. The proviso is that print compelled the people to read, and therefore to be modern. Since a large number of books entered the world, the extensive model of reading took precedence over the intensive model. Referencing a variety of ideas on books and reading, I argue that there is a bodily interaction between readers and books, and also between the act of reading and the printed text. Moreover, books have a body of their own, which has been designed to be a match for the human body. Probing into possible answers to the question ”Why do we read?”, I also tackled the resistance of some texts, which may either frustrate their readers, or give them a sense of what Bloom calls the ”reader’s sublime.” The difficulty of reading puts the reader not just in the text, but in its very centre, while the text itself becomes the reader’s drama. In the 21st century, in the context of what many consider to be a ”decine of literacy” and the large use of electronic reading devices, books and reading have entered a new stage. The printed book and reading traditional books have not lost their grip, while the e-book and e-reading need further testing.

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How Reading Makes Us More Human

A debate has erupted over whether reading fiction makes human beings more moral. But what if its real value consists in something even more fundamental?

A battle over books has erupted recently on the pages of The New York Times and Time. The opening salvo was Gregory Currie's essay , "Does Great Literature Make Us Better?" which asserts that the widely held belief that reading makes us more moral has little support. In response , Annie Murphy Paul weighed in with "Reading Literature Makes Us Smarter and Nicer." Her argument is that "deep reading," the kind of reading great literature requires, is a distinctive cognitive activity that contributes to our ability to empathize with others; it therefore can, in fact, makes us "smarter and nicer," among other things. Yet these essays aren't so much coming to different conclusions as considering different questions.

To advance her thesis, Paul cites studies by Raymond Mar, a psychologist at York University in Canada, and Keith Oatley, a professor emeritus of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto. Taken together, their findings suggest that those "who often read fiction appear to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them and view the world from their perspective." It's the kind of thing writer Joyce Carol Oates is talking about when she says, "Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul."

Oatley and Mar's conclusions are supported, Paul argues, by recent studies in neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science. This research shows that "deep reading -- slow, immersive, rich in sensory detail and emotional and moral complexity -- is a distinctive experience," a kind of reading that differs in kind and quality from "the mere decoding of words" that constitutes a good deal of what passes for reading today, particularly for too many of our students in too many of our schools (as I have previously written about here ).

Paul concludes her essay with a reference to the literary critic Frank Kermode, who famously distinguishes between "carnal reading" -- characterized by the hurried, utilitarian information processing that constitutes the bulk of our daily reading diet -- and "spiritual reading," reading done with focused attention for pleasure, reflection, analysis, and growth. It is in this distinction that we find the real difference between the warring factions in what might be a chicken-or-egg scenario: Does great literature make people better, or are good people drawn to reading great literature?

Currie is asking whether reading great literature makes readers more moral  -- a topic taken up by Aristotle in Poetics (which makes an ethical apology for literature) . Currie cites as counter-evidence the well-read, highly cultured Nazis. The problem with this (aside from falling into the trap of Godwin's Law ) is that the Nazis were, in fact, acting in strict conformity to the dictates of a moral code, albeit the perverse code of the Third Reich. But Paul examines the connection of great literature not to our moral selves, but to our spiritual selves.

What good literature can do and does do -- far greater than any importation of morality -- is touch the human soul.

Reading is one of the few distinctively human activities that set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. As many scholars have noted, and Paul too mentions in her piece, reading, unlike spoken language, does not come naturally to human beings. It must be taught. Because it goes beyond mere biology, there is something profoundly spiritual -- however one understands that word -- about the human ability, and impulse, to read. In fact, even the various senses in which we use the word captures this: to "read" means not only to decipher a given and learned set of symbols in a mechanistic way, but it also suggests that very human act of finding meaning, of "interpreting" in the sense of "reading" a person or situation. To read in this sense might be considered one of the most spiritual of all human activities.

It is "spiritual reading" -- not merely decoding -- that unleashes the power that good literature has to reach into our souls and, in so doing, draw and connect us to others. This is why the way we read can be even more important than what we read. In fact, reading good literature won't make a reader a better person any more than sitting in a church, synagogue or mosque will. But reading good books well just might.

It did for me. As I relayed in my literary and spiritual memoir , the books I have read over a lifetime have shaped my worldview, my beliefs, and my life as much as anything else. From Great Expectations I learned the power the stories we tell ourselves have to do either harm and good, to ourselves and to others; from Death of a Salesman I learned the dangers of a corrupt version of the American Dream; from Madame Bovary, I learned to embrace the real world rather than escaping into flights of fancy; from Gulliver's Travels I learned the profound limitations of my own finite perspective; and from Jane Eyre I learned how to be myself. These weren't mere intellectual or moral lessons, although they certainly may have begun as such. Rather, the stories from these books and so many others became part of my life story and then, gradually, part of my very soul.

As Eugene H. Peterson explains in Eat this Book , "Reading is an immense gift, but only if the words are assimilated, taken into the soul -- eaten, chewed, gnawed, received in unhurried delight." Peterson describes this ancient art of lectio divina, or spiritual reading, as "reading that enters our souls as food enters our stomachs, spreads through our blood, and becomes ... love and wisdom." More than the books themselves, it is the skills and the desire to read in this way which comprise the essential gift we must give our students and ourselves. But this won't happen by way of nature or by accident.

Maryanne Wolf, director of the Center for Reading and Language Research and author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain ,  has studied "deep reading" in the context of the science of the brain. She describes the fragility of the brain's ability to read with the kind of sustained attention that allows literature to wield its shaping power over us:

The act of going beyond the text to analyze, infer and think new thoughts is the product of years of formation. It takes time, both in milliseconds and years, and effort to learn to read with deep, expanding comprehension and to execute all these processes as an adult expert reader. ... Because we literally and physiologically can read in multiple ways, how we read--and what we absorb from our reading -- will be influenced by both the content of our reading and the medium we use.

The power of "spiritual reading" is its ability to transcend the immediacy of the material, the moment, or even the moral choice at hand. This isn't the sort of phenomenon that lends itself to the quantifiable data Currie seeks, although Paul demonstrates is possible, to measure. Even so, such reading doesn't make us better so much as it makes us human .

Why Reading Is a Lost Art

Thoughtful Reading

Reading as a lost art may sound strange. After all, you’re reading this article, and nearly every adult you know can wield the reading wrench from their skills tool kit.

In reality, thoughtful reading is becoming a lost art. Even if we’re reading more, it’s primarily on screens. We scroll through social media and scan online text, barely processing one thought before a hyperlink jerks us to the next. Artful reading is dying. Many people believe it’s drawing a final breath on its deathbed.

But recovery is possible! When we recognize our manifold losses and why they matter, we can implement ways to recover artful reading.

Is Reading Lost?

Most people believe reading is worthwhile and they should read more. But nearly a quarter of adults cannot name one author or haven’t read a single book in the previous year. Retirees read more than other age groups in America, but even they don’t average as much as an hour per day. Compare that to the average of five to six hours spent daily on digital media. Many people believe technology has detrimental effects on reading.

Recovering the Lost Art of Reading

Leland ryken , glenda faye mathes.

In today’s technology-driven culture, reading has become a lost art.  Recovering the Lost Art of Reading  explores the importance of reading generally and of studying the Bible as literature, while giving practical suggestions on how to read well.

In The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains , Nicholas Carr supports his claim that Internet use causes negative brain changes. Online reading impedes analytical thought and fractures focus.

In Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” 1 he grieves his own loss: “The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.” His mind now expects to receive information as the Internet “distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.” He writes, “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”

Michael Harris goes even farther to confess, “I have forgotten how to read.” 2 Unable to complete one chapter in a book, he found other people shared his problem. “This doesn’t mean we’re reading less” in our “text-gorged society,” he writes. “What’s at stake is not whether we read. It’s how we read.” He states: “In a very real way, to lose old styles of reading is to lose a part of ourselves.”

What Are We Losing?

Failures to read or read well cause us to lose life’s balance and multiple means of sharpening minds and shaping character. We may even lose crucial aspects of our spiritual lives.

A primary casualty is the loss of meaningful leisure. Finite humans need rhythms of work and rest, both of which God ordained for our good. Reading refreshes more deeply than leisure activities that fail to engage the mind and imagination.

A related loss is self-transcendence. Immersing ourselves in the reading experience lifts our minds above self-centered thoughts and concerns to focus on other people, or large themes, or God.

If we neglect reading, we lose contact with the wisdom and enrichment from the past. The voice of the past speaks with a stabilizing influence into the tyranny of the secular and politically-correct present. A weighty consideration for Christians is that their sacred book and salvation’s redemptive acts are rooted in the past.

Another loss is our failure to connect with essential human experience. A disconnection with biblical and bedrock aspects of humanity thwarts our understanding of enduring values, norms for living, and self-identity concepts. Rejecting connections with the past and essential human experience prevents our participation in civilization’s ongoing conversation.

These disconnections contribute to our loss of an enlarged vision. C. S. Lewis writes that “we seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves. . . . We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as our own.” 3 Dismissing literature’s vast sweep of viewpoints and experiences limits our outlook and stunts our spirits.

Not reading also results in the loss of a primary means of edification. Some literature affirms the Christian faith, while a larger body embodies truth congruent with it. Even literature contradicting Christianity can edify the believer who sees through its despairing unbelief to our joyful hope in Christ. Failing to read prevents new avenues of edification.

The decline of reading has impoverished our culture and individual lives. In the process, we lose our capacity to discern the true, the good, and the beautiful.

Why Should We Care?

These losses are important for everyone, but particularly Christians. As children of The Book, we should passionately seek the true, the good, and the beautiful in every book.

If we—like Michael Harris—have forgotten how to read, we’ve lost more than delight in literary treasures. We’ve lost the ability to read the Bible consistently and attentively. What then happens to the way we live and to our relationship with God? We lose part of ourselves in ways infinitely worse than Harris imagines.

Philip Yancey conveys the extent of this risk in the title of his article, “The death of reading is threatening the soul.” 4 He views a commitment to reading as a continuing battle, advocating protection against temptation and an environment that nourishes reading and meditation.

Artfully reading the Good Book and other good books is a treasure we dare not lose.

Christians are called to quiet our souls and commune with God through an open Bible. What keeps us from meditating on God regularly, receptively, and thoughtfully? Artfully reading the Good Book and other good books is a treasure we dare not lose.

Is Reading an Art?

We begin to consider reading as an art when we think about what we read and how we read. Informational reading and online skimming require only simple decoding. Imaginative literature involves complex thinking. But artful reading involves more than this basic differentiation.

Receptively and thoughtfully reading a novel or a memoir or a poem makes us an active participant in its art. An imaginative current flows between the written words and the mind’s eye. An author creates a work of literature. A reader receives and responds to it, empowering participation in its art.

In The Mind of the Maker , Dorothy Sayers identifies a book’s threefold aspect. The book as Thought (the idea in the writer’s mind), as Written (the image of the idea), and as Read (its power on the responsive mind). We participate in literature’s artistic experience by pondering the author’s idea, receiving the energy in the words, and responding to the work’s power. Such participation propels reading into the realm of art.

We discover the power of creativity with the context of a biblical aesthetic, which can be defined as a perspective steeped in scriptural knowledge and informed by artistic awareness. A foundational concept in developing a biblical aesthetic is looking for the true, the good, and the beautiful.

This triad, usually credited to ancient Greek philosophy, is actually rooted in God and his word. Philippians 4:8 urges readers to think about whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, and excellent—a list encompassing the true, the good, and the beautiful.

The Bible teaches that God is truth and his word is truth. Because truth is integral to God’s character, Christians must search for it and walk in it. Christians prize all that is true, wherever we find it and whatever its secondary source.

As God values what is true, he equally values what is good. God is good and the origin of goodness. The Bible is our ultimate sourcebook for morality. But literature influences readers with moral (or immoral) prompts. When Christians accurately assess these prompts, we share God’s love for the good.

In addition to the true and the good, a biblical aesthetic includes the beautiful. The Bible teems with depictions of God’s beauty, details for beautiful worship items, and the beauties of creation. Beauty in our world reflects God’s beauty and his love for it. We glorify God when we delight in his good gift of beauty.

Reading is an art that we cannot afford to lose. And recovery is within our reach.

How Can We Recover Reading?

When we acknowledge the problem and its importance, we begin to recover reading by nurturing positive perspectives. Rather than view ourselves as unliterary people, we can think of ourselves as readers. Instead of stressing about not having time to read, we can exercise our freedom to choose reading’s pleasure and refreshment.

An obvious step toward recovery is to read. The more we read, the better readers we become. We learn to read carefully, immersing ourselves in the story before us. Attentive reading increases awareness of the work’s artistry, which generates joy.

Many people enjoy repeatedly reading favorites, but community with other readers through book clubs or discussion groups can introduce us to new genres and authors. Part of discovering a good book includes asking how it is true, good, and beautiful. Such evaluation helps artful reading surpass mere enlightened humanism to move into the realm of the spiritual life.

The Spiritual Component

Although the Bible is God’s authoritative and inspired word, he can work through human words to bring spiritual renewal or even conversion. Christians frequently notice ways literature resonates with our faith or nurtures our spiritual lives. This makes perfect sense because the Bible conveys its truth predominately through literary form. Obviously, spiritual growth can flow through literature. The Bible proves it.

Artful reading enriches our corporate and personal lives in countless ways. It often brings the reader closer to God. We lose it at our very great peril.

• The Atlantic , July/August 2008, theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/
• The Globe and Mail , February 9, 2018), theglobeandmail.com/opinion/i-have-forgotten-how-toread/article37921379/
• An Experiment in Criticism , chapter 3
• The Washington Post , July 21, 2017, washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/07/21/the-death-of-reading-is-threatening-the-soul/

Glenda Faye Mathes is the coauthor with Leland Ryken of Recovering the Lost Art of Reading: A Quest for the True, the Good, and the Beautiful .

Glenda Faye Mathes (BLS, University of Iowa) is a professional writer with a passion for literary excellence. She has authored over a thousand articles and several nonfiction books as well as the Matthew in the Middle fiction series. Glenda has been the featured speaker at women's conferences and at seminars for prison inmates.

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Is reading a ‘dying habit’?

THE VIEW FROM RIZAL

Since 2011, the Department of Education (DepEd) has been spearheading the country’s celebration of the National Reading Month.

The celebration aims to inspire our youth to adopt and stick to the habit of reading. During this month, schools will be doing activities to get them to love the written word, such as “read-a-thons” and a novel idea called “DEAR” which stands for “Drop Everything and Read.”

We laud any and all efforts by both the government and private sectors to help our children discover the joys and value of reading. We also hope that the celebration of the National Reading Month will help us reflect on a question now being discussed in many parts of the world.

The question is, “Is reading a dying habit?”

And, if yes, what must we do about it?

The fact that many countries celebrate a “reading month” should be an indicator that, yes, reading “is a dying habit,” and which, therefore, needs to be encouraged among the young. The reading habit may have lost out to the strong competition from modern gadgets. It began with television and then came computers, mobile phones, and tablets. 

Perhaps, the younger generations have found out that information is much easier to access and obtain from these gadgets which connect them to the world wide web. We recall that during our student days, we had to go through the index cards in our school library to find the books that would provide us with the information we needed for our research and assignments. On an unlucky day, someone else would have checked out the books indicated in the index cards. We will have to wait for the borrower to return the books before we can finally get our hands on the information we badly need. The other option was to go to the house of classmates whose parents had invested in complete sets of encyclopedias. 

Today, information that took us days to obtain can now be accessed within seconds – at the click of a computer mouse or of the “search” button on our cellphones.

Perhaps, we cannot blame our younger generations for turning their back on books.

It also used to be that we turned to books to read stories: fiction, non-fiction, biographies, history. We found it an exhilarating experience to enter into the world of the characters in a story. We imagined ourselves as part of the conflict and its resolution. Oftentimes, we would be so immersed in reading that we would feel we have become the hero of the story.

That kind of reading required much from us. We had to set aside a time and a place to read to enjoy the story. Some stories we would attempt to finish in one day. That would mean foregoing other social activities for the sake of knowing what happened at the end of that story.

Perhaps, today’s younger generations no longer have the time to invest in reading and enjoying books the way we did. They have instead turned to Netflix, Amazon Prime, TCL, and other movie streaming services. They now watch stories rather than read them. They can do it anytime and anywhere with the use of their cellphones.

We do the same. However, we know the difference between “watching” and “reading” a story. There is something special about the reading experience – the smell and the feel of the printed book; the solemnity of the act of turning a page; ending a chapter and moving on to the next. Reading a book did feel like what life is all about.

We hope our children will get to discover these joys one gets from reading a book.

The American Psychological Association (APA) confirmed the downtrend in the reading habit among the young. Citing the work of a San Diego State University professor, the APA said that the steep decline in reading print media among the young was observed in the early 1990s. 

Since then, students have been using more of their time texting or surfing the internet. The APA research expressed grave concern over this trend. It said, “Think about how difficult it must be to read even five pages of an 800-page college textbook when you’ve been used to spending most of your time switching between one digital activity and another in a matter of seconds.”

“There is no lack of intelligence among young people,” the report pointed out,” but they do have less experience focusing for longer periods and reading long-form text.”

It underscored: “Being able to read long-form text is crucial for understanding complex issues and developing critical thinking skills”. Is this ability important?

Yes, the APA study said. It explained, “Democracies need informed voters and involved citizens who can think through issues, and that can be more difficult for people of all ages now that online information is the norm.”

Let’s help our children rediscover the ability to read books and hone their critical reading skills. ( [email protected] )  

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• May 27, 2013

The immense benefits of reading as an essential life skill has long been known and

indeed for a long time it has been a favourite pastime for many people. Unfortunately, with the rapid growth of electronic technology the reading habit, particular among the young is declining at an alarming rate and the decline in language skills, especially writing skills, is being reflected at all levels of society. Gone are the days when the libraries and bookstores were almost always filled to capacity and one would feel embarrassed when someone mentions a book which you have not read. In those days it was dreadful when you missed out on reading a book, especially when it was a classic. Today it is in the reverse, when you speak of great books you are looked upon as being odd and even crazy in some instances. It is well known that if children do not master reading in elementary school, they will almost certainly encounter difficulties throughout their schooling. And when they leave school and enter the working world lacking the skills they need to find a job, develop financial independence, and take their places as citizens, parents and workers they encounter serious difficulties.. In early life, a key benefit of strong reading skills is that your child will read. Skilled readers end up reading many millions more words than struggling readers, an incredible advantage in knowledge, vocabulary, high stakes test and understanding of life, which carries through college and into life. From reading, the brain also benefits from a good workout. And reading is more neurobiologically demanding than watching TV or listening to the radio. A sentence is shorthand for a lot of information that must be inferred by the brain. In general, your intelligence is called into action, as is greater concentration. “We are forced to construct, to produce narrative, to imagine,” says Maryanne Wolf, director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University and author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. “Typically, when you read, you have more time to think. Reading gives you a unique pause button for comprehension and insight. By and large, with oral language — when you watch a film or listen to a tape — you don’t press pause.” A literate mind is a more complex one. “There’s a richness that reading gives you,” Wolf says, “an opportunity to probe more than any other medium I know of. Reading is about not being content with the surface.” In Anne E. Cunningham’s paper, What Reading Does for the Mind (pdf version), she found that reading, in general, makes you smarter, and it keeps you sharp as you age. Reading about the diversity of life and exposing yourself to new ideas and more information helps to develop the creative side of the brain as it imbibes innovation into your thinking process, perhaps the best reading benefit of all. Against this backdrop, the First Lady’s call during her recent visit to Essequibo to make reading a significant part of their lives, as opposed to doing so only when studying is required, is timely and most welcome. But to arrest the decline in the reading habit it would take much more than an appeal from the First Lady. Instead, it would need the collective effort of society including that of parents, teachers, community leaders as well as the re-orienting of children and students which in today’s context of rapid growth of electronic technology certainly will be a herculean task. Nevertheless, “the longest journey begins with the first step.”

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Reading is Good Habit for Students and Children

 500+ words essay on reading is good habit.

Reading is a very good habit that one needs to develop in life. Good books can inform you, enlighten you and lead you in the right direction. There is no better companion than a good book. Reading is important because it is good for your overall well-being. Once you start reading, you experience a whole new world. When you start loving the habit of reading you eventually get addicted to it. Reading develops language skills and vocabulary. Reading books is also a way to relax and reduce stress. It is important to read a good book at least for a few minutes each day to stretch the brain muscles for healthy functioning.

Benefits of Reading

Books really are your best friends as you can rely on them when you are bored, upset, depressed, lonely or annoyed. They will accompany you anytime you want them and enhance your mood. They share with you information and knowledge any time you need. Good books always guide you to the correct path in life. Following are the benefits of reading –

Self Improvement: Reading helps you develop positive thinking. Reading is important because it develops your mind and gives you excessive knowledge and lessons of life. It helps you understand the world around you better. It keeps your mind active and enhances your creative ability.

Communication Skills: Reading improves your vocabulary and develops your communication skills. It helps you learn how to use your language creatively. Not only does it improve your communication but it also makes you a better writer. Good communication is important in every aspect of life.

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Increases Knowledge: Books enable you to have a glimpse into cultures, traditions, arts, history, geography, health, psychology and several other subjects and aspects of life. You get an amazing amount of knowledge and information from books.

Reduces Stress: Reading a good book takes you in a new world and helps you relieve your day to day stress. It has several positive effects on your mind, body, and soul. It stimulates your brain muscles and keeps your brain healthy and strong.

Great Pleasure: When I read a book, I read it for pleasure. I just indulge myself in reading and experience a whole new world. Once I start reading a book I get so captivated I never want to leave it until I finish. It always gives a lot of pleasure to read a good book and cherish it for a lifetime.

Boosts your Imagination and Creativity: Reading takes you to the world of imagination and enhances your creativity. Reading helps you explore life from different perspectives. While you read books you are building new and creative thoughts, images and opinions in your mind. It makes you think creatively, fantasize and use your imagination.

Develops your Analytical Skills: By active reading, you explore several aspects of life. It involves questioning what you read. It helps you develop your thoughts and express your opinions. New ideas and thoughts pop up in your mind by active reading. It stimulates and develops your brain and gives you a new perspective.

Reduces Boredom: Journeys for long hours or a long vacation from work can be pretty boring in spite of all the social sites. Books come in handy and release you from boredom.

Read Different Stages of Reading here.

The habit of reading is one of the best qualities that a person can possess. Books are known to be your best friend for a reason. So it is very important to develop a good reading habit. We must all read on a daily basis for at least 30 minutes to enjoy the sweet fruits of reading. It is a great pleasure to sit in a quiet place and enjoy reading. Reading a good book is the most enjoyable experience one can have.

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Reading: A Dying Habit

The pleasure one gets from reading a good book is only understood by a fellow reader. Not caring how you look, forgetting to eat your meals, becoming a complete social retard till the end of the book are all signs of a readaholic. Reading for the sake of reading is dying. Reading the newspaper, reading something work-related, reading to teach your kids or parents is not what I am talking about.

I once asked my best friend, who, as a matter of fact, is a voracious reader as well as a shopaholic and clothes addict, what her choice would be if she had to give up either books or shopping for a year. First of all, she informed me that she sincerely hoped that she would never have to make such a choice, but she would give up shopping if push came to shove. “Shopping is my therapy, it soothes my frazzled nerves, but reading is neither therapy nor a pastime for me. Books are my lifeline, and they keep me sane in this insane world, they keep me company during my loneliness, inspire me, give me hope and let me believe in the illusion that everything will be all right again. And so I could never give them up even for a day.”

Children, I think, have now started to decide from an early age what they feel will bring them joy, and if reading is not it, then so be it. And I think that’s a shame. I wouldn’t want anyone to miss out on reading. Even if you are not a reader, I urge you to read for at least 10-15 minutes daily. It will deeply impact your life.

Last Updated on July 24, 2023 by Himani Rawat

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Reading: A Dying Habit In The digital Age?

“ A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… The man who never reads lives only one .”(George R. R. Martin) We’re all Reading something or the other at all times. Some people read the newspaper first thing when they wake up in the morning. Others may only read articles that interest them. Different individuals read for different purposes; it could be to acquire knowledge or simply for leisure purposes .

In what manner has the practice of Reading books evolved over time?

Reading is one of the cheapest yet most adequate ways of obtaining information. To get an update on the latest world affairs, there are newspapers. When there’s something you’re not sure about and perhaps want to get a clearer idea of a particular topic, you research about it. Countless published studies or articles by experts may help you solve your problem without much effort!

Over time reading has taken up various forms. Book shops have seen a fall in sales because of the invention of e-books . People also prefer to get news updates through various news applications on their phones or laptops. The importance of Reading, however, is higher now than ever. They say knowledge is power and there is more knowledge out there waiting to be consumed.

Reading patterns of students in the present times

In today’s world , extensive reading is essential for all students studying in high schools, colleges or universities. Majority of the courses have lots of reading material which leaves the students with not much choice. Even though a majority of the students do not read for leisure purposes, they still read.

A study by Naveed Sehar about the ‘ Reading Habits among Undergraduate Students of NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan ’ shows that, out of the 50 students the study was conducted on, 80% were those who read. Out of that 80%, 52.5% prefer to read printed books , while the remaining percentage would rather use e-books . Furthermore, out of the students who favoured paperback/printed books, 66.6% read for academic purposes or to attain information ; 19% read to improve their vocabulary and merely 14.2% students read for entertainment . This gives a rough idea of the reading trends among students in Pakistan. Although the data is not enough to be representative of the entire student body of Pakistan.

Receding reading habits in Pakistan

Reading opens up another dimension for an individual, creating new perspectives and opening up one’s mind to creative ideas . It helps you think out of the box and maybe paint pictures for you that you might not be able to envision otherwise. A self-help book would perchance help you evolve into a better version of yourself. Similarly, more or less, a history book would educate you to view the conflicts of the world in a more unusual light than you previously did.

According to a recent survey conducted in 2019 by Gallup and Gillani Foundation Pakistan, 3/4 th of the Pakistani population does not read. The survey conducted on 1178 men and women from all over Pakistan concluded that only 9% of Pakistanis are keen readers.

Book reading should be encouraged from a very young age in order to develop polished reading habits by the time a child is grown up. Traditional Urdu literature is also dying over time since not much importance is given to it. Many people blame the invention of devices such as phones and iPads for having caused the decline in reading books.

How to bring back the book reading culture?

A lot of issues that preclude our society from advancing arise from the absence of understanding and knowledge . The existence of extreme racial discrimination , sexism and abuse of power is majorly due to the lack of awareness . Awareness is created through educating individuals about certain areas of problem.

Multiple sources can be used to fix the acknowledged issues. Using social media, for instance, we could reinforce the seriousness of the concerns. Reading books should most definitely not be left as a tradition for the elder generations only. Schools need to reassess educational methods that lead to cramming.

We at Dastaan strive to bring back the book reading culture . We thoroughly appreciate the crisp turning of pages while reading a book or the smell of old books paired with new ideas. Our collection at Qissa undoubtedly has a book for each and every one of you. So get your cup of coffee and your reading glasses because it’s time to dive into a world of imagination!

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ICSE English Composition: 25 Latest Topics

by Yash Soni on Sep 27, 2022

ICSE English language exams for Class 9 & 10 include composition writing as a mandatory question. Make sure you read important tips to write compositions in ICSE before you begin your practise.

Below are 25 trending composition topics in ICSE that you can use to practise essay writing:

Descriptive Essays

• Describe your favourite place in the world.
• Which of your family members do you spend the most time with? Describe your experience of being with them.
• Describe what you like about your house and give a sneak peek of your surroundings.
• Imagine a time you accomplished a personal goal. Give a brief description of the goal you were after and how you achieved it. Describe how you felt when you achieved it.
• Life revolves around people. Describe how one person has had a significant influence on your life.

Narrative Essays

• Narrate an experience you had when you were expected to perform well but for some reason were not able to. Narrate what happened and why it happened. In what way did it teach you something?
• Think of a time when you found yourself in an embarrassing situation. Narrate how you got into that situation, how you dealt with it, and the lesson you learnt from it.
• Explain how your teacher has influenced your life. Refer to relevant incidents or relate appropriate anecdotes to show how the actions of your teacher and his/her example have affected your life.
• Narrate an incident when you had difficulty travelling from one place to another. Mention what made it difficult for you to travel and where did you go?
• Narrate an incident when you were caught in a traffic jam for hours. What difficulties did you face? What were the consequences?

Argumentative Essays

• "Teenagers today are more worldly-wise than their parents." Express your views for or against the statement.
• "Plastic bags are convenient and should not be banned by the government." Give your views for or against this statement.
• "Book reading is a dying phenomenon of life nowadays." Throw light on the factors responsible for it and give suggestions for its improvement.
• "The use of Mobile Phones must be allowed in schools." Express your views for or against this statement.
• "Money causes more harm than good." Express your views for or against this statement.

Story Writing

• Write an original short story that ends with the words: "... I put the keys back into the drawer, hoping no one would notice they had been touched."
• Write an original short story that begins with the words: "The day started off well enough, who thought it would..."
• Write an original story that ends with the words: "... it came as a blessing in disguise."
• Write a short story which illustrates the truth of the statement, 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder.'
• Write an original story which illustrates the truth of the statement, 'One lie leads to another'.

Picture Composition

You can practice this essays and get it evaluated from your class teacher and get a better understanding of your performance. You can also improve your grammar as students lose lot of there marks due to grammar.  Our Top 5 essay writing tips can also be a game changer for your upcoming exams.

Also checkout Almond Books English Compositions for Class 9 and 10

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