As an English Literature graduate and avid bookworm, I’ve read my fair share of books and during my degree alone I ended up reading a pretty varied mix; everything from Shakespeare to Roth all piled into a few years.
Over the years, I’ve read a load of genres and forms and I feel like I got up close and personal with a variety of cultures, languages and walks of life.
Even though I didn’t actually see these places, or talk to these people, I was able to get a pretty good insight into how they experience the world, and live a day in someone else’s shoes.
Books let you see places you might never have the chance travel to (either because it’s too expensive or it doesn’t exist at all), all with the words an author has written on a page.
They let you travel back or forward in time, something that has always fascinated me.
They give you a better understanding of why the world is the way it is, as well as help you to change it for the better, or at least make you think about it.
They let you create your own world, that’s totally unique to you, just with the way you interpret the words in front of you. That can be a pretty handy escape when the world seems to be going insane (like now).
A few years ago now, my sister, knowing me to be the book nerd that I am, opened my eyes to a quote by the one and only Dr Seuss:
“The more books that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go”.
This has stuck with me since then, and it’s something that I definitely stand by. In the literal and metaphorical sense. Literally, I feel like having a greater understanding of the world has taken me places in terms of my education, career and where I’m at right now. Metaphorically, I’ve travelled all over the world, and ‘been’ to tons of places I might never go to in real life.
Just Emma Things 