Why do we read? What is it about the written word that compels us away from the instant visual gratification available to us to glorious isolation?
How To Read
There may be as many reasons for reading as there are books. We may read to leave behind the everyday or to shut out dread, desire or the dull cruelty of life. As Robert Louis Stevenson noted: “If a man reads very hard… he will have little time for thought.”
Or perhaps we read in order to discover our better selves, to challenge our preconceptions and better understand our fellow man? “We feel our wisdom begins where that of the author ends, and we would like him to give us answers, while all he can do is give us desires” said Marcel Proust.
Tonight we will tackle man’s primordial need for narrative. We will explore links between your early reading and your subconscious adult choices. We will discuss how to get more from your reading, how to read better, how to break the shackles of solitary reading and how to embrace new reading forms. We will also examine the moments when discarding the book you are reading is a good idea.
I think this would be a really great class to go to at the school of life, london! The course/talks always seem quite expensive but I guess that's because they get the good guests in and are probably oversubscribed most of the time anyway! this talk would fit in really well with my library work and genuinely sounds really interesting, why do you read?? I read to relax and definitely to try to come out of myself, to distance myself from a situation and become immersed in someone else's story, books are very seductive and I practically always judge a book by its cover.
