♥ Nothing Better Than Reading!! ♥ discussion

nothing!
I starting reading books just a few months ago!

The Great Gatsby. That book has stayed with me since the time I read it. I don't really know why. Perhaps it is the lyricism and the unattainable dream.

Ironweed same thing. They are both books that have stuck with me and are really the ones I have read and reread over and over again.

Grapes of Wrath: social justice and the travails of the Joad family. Excellent writing. Each book carries a similar type of theme while being about different archetypes.

Ican't pick first moment....my mom was just always reading me various books and collections, like Beatrix Potter, Curious George, Winnie the Pooh, and Thomas the Tank Engine. In school, reading was just natural to me. My teachers gave me books as gifts, I read anything and everything and I've never been able to stop. So many books since have changed my perspective or taught me new things. I have too many favorites to list and too many yet to read. I'm an English major and all that does is fuel my love for reading and exposes me to new texts every day. The series that stand sout msot from childhood is The Guardians of Ga'Hoole. I read it for reading group in class and went on to read every book after and if I saw anymore now, I'd still buy them and feel as thrilled as though I were 11 again. Books are the one constant in life. People come and go, heart ache comes and fades....but stories and characters live on with you forever. Books just got me through my first break up.

There were so many life-changing reads but it was when I read, or acquired I should say because I believe it's more of a reference book, The Lifetime Reading Plan by Clifton Fadiman that I began to realize that reading is precious and that we only get so many days on Earth to discover great books. Significant because I started valuing my precious time reading from that moment on.

When I was around 6 or 7 my mom read to me The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe, because of that book and my mom's love of reading I became an avid reader. Also when I was younger I had an over active imagination and I believed that Narnia was a real place, was disappointed that we did have an actual wardrobe in our house! To me reading has always allowed me to dream big, to image worlds and lives I would not encounter in my daily life. I learn so much when I read and enjoy myself along the way.

The most significant moment in my reading life would honestly have to be the day that I read the first word on the first page of the book: Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. This book has changed my life in a certainly dramatic way. I am practically obsessed. Truthfully, this series has given me a home that i so futilely desired in the real world. Greek mythology, architecture, the oceanic field, and basically all my most favorite things all rolled up together quite literally equals the Percy Jackson Series. Best series ever written in history in my very bias opinion. :)

This is just one moment of many. My entire reading life has been significant, allowing for me to venture deeper into the world of many unknown works of literature one book at a time.

This is a great question! There wasn't anything major in my childhood that really revolved around books. I mean, I did all the usual stuff like go to the library and read a lot. I bonded with a good friend over a shared liking of certain books. I think they really became important to me after I had my daughter. I needed an escape and some stimulation and books gave me that! I think YA books do the best with that because they can take me back to post motherhood.

One thing I remember is the book that good my in to reading I read over and over and over it just a great book

When I was little, I used to BEG my mom or dad to keep reading "just one more" bedtime story, and it never ended. I would sit on the floor with one of them and I remember the pile of read books next to us growing taller and taller :)

When I read "Confessions of a Queen", a biography of Marie Antoinette Queen of France, and I already forgot the author hehe. Read it when I was in elementary. I think I was deeply saddened by her tragic fate. I then realized that not all stories that begun as a fairy tale, will also have a happy ending. Life as we know it will never be constant. >_<

The most significant thing which reading bought in my life is power of blocking unwanted noises and thoughts. No matter where i am, even in a crowd of hundreds on a busy road crawling with vehicles i can easily completely block myself from every noise, whisper or shouts. This really helps me to calm down in number of situations and think rationally. Also due to this i never get irritated in traffic.

Second would be patience, you cant be a good reader if you dont have patience, and that certainly was lacking in me, but now, all i have in world is patience, - a lot and lot of it. :P

I always loved to read, so even as a toddler I would go through books like fire. But it wasn't until third grade that I really remember sitting down during 'reading time' and being inspired. We had a really long time to read and there were little pillows all around the room to sit in. I just remember waiting all day to be able to sit on one of those little pillows and read the Little House on the Prairie series. Another big memory was reading Maniac Magee out loud in class. I loved that book. Everyone always said it was for boys, and I never understood why that would be. It was my first lesson in 'gender stereotypes are dumb' and 'don't let anyone tell you what you should like'. Lastly, I remember reading almost every single Roald Dahl book in the kids room at the library while I waited for my brother to be tutored. We were both really young, and my brother would complain about reading the whole way to the library in the car, and I secretly loved being 'dragged' there every week.

I think mine's is when I joined my first fandom which was Percy Jackson. I didn't even know what a fandom was until the seventh grade. What's funny was I watched the movie first and then right after we got out of the theater we went to Borders, man I miss that place, and my mom was like 'isn't that that movie we just watched you should read the book'. I was in the fourth grade and I was still reading the Magic Tree House and I agreed to read it but I kept telling everyone how there was no way the book could beat that movie. We bought the movie too but half way through the book I was ready to murder the disc. Now I can't even imagine why I thought the movie was so good. I still haven't watched that movie again or buy The Sea of Monsters. Somebody should just get a new director and cast and make it a TV series instead. Maybe we can use the Harry Potter crew because they knew what they were doing.

Throughout my life, reading has opened up my world. It has given me glimpses into worlds very different from mine. Each of those glimpses, beginning when I was little, widened my world and gave me new perspectives, ideas, interests.There is truly nothing better!

I don't have one great, big moment like a lot of you. I guess it was growing up - not to sound cliche, but reading gave me a place to escape to mentally.

I guess the moment would be when I was thirteen and I went to the library for the first time in a few years. I had never been super into books but that day when I picked out a book it was different. I ended up loving the book and going back two days later to get more books. It wasn't escape for me. It was entertainment and I have an active imagination and books just fueled it even more. I can't remember the name of the book but I can probably find it if I tried. I remember everything that happens in it.

That reading is an escape for me and helps relieve my stress instead of throwing objects at the wall and getting angry

I am 15 years old so I will probably have a lot more moments but one significant moment that I have had which is due to my reading is when I convinced my best friend to read. I know its kind of silly but she was never into reading and for me it was a huge step to transfer my love of reading to others and now she's a bookworm. Not like me but, she loves reading and I love the feeling knowing you passed on your love

Gayatri wrote: "I am 15 years old so I will probably have a lot more moments but one significant moment that I have had which is due to my reading is when I convinced my best friend to read. I know its kind of si..."

Beautiful comment - thank you for sharing

No problem :) Love to share

My change came the beginning of freshman year. I had gone from Nancy Drew and Tinkerbell at the age of six to Fallen Too Far (Abbi Glines) and Last Hit (Jessica Claire) at the age of sixteen. When you enter high school it's like they expect you to have you're entire future mapped out, and I admit for a second I was so pumped full of motivational speeches I thought I did have everything mapped out. But then I picked up Real by Katy Evans. I don't think it was one out of the three book series that changed me exactly, but maybe all three put together. Because behind the steamy romance is the story of this boy, who's now a man, and his struggle to find love and accept that he deserves the love he finds. I really was fascinated by the background story of Remington Tate. So I began to look into people with things like Bipolar disorders and Depression, which lead to Asbergers and Down-syndrome. These were all things I'd heard about, some I'd seen for myself, but I'd never actually thought about the struggle they caused within people. So when my next chance at school came I informed everyone I wanted to be a Teen Psychologist. I never want a child, or young adult to walk into life thinking that they are unlovable simply because their different.

Nicole wrote: "My change came the beginning of freshman year. I had gone from Nancy Drew and Tinkerbell at the age of six to Fallen Too Far (Abbi Glines) and Last Hit (Jessica Claire) at the age of sixteen. When ..."

You are one of a kind, Nicole... Keep it up!!

The most significant part of my reading life was when I started to read and I realized that I also really love to write and then I could put my life in writing and was able to relieve stress from it .

There have been two very significant moments in my reading life:

1. When in primary school the teacher asked us to bring to school books in order to lend them to each other. I came up with a mystery (I can't remember which) lent to me, and it was the first of a long series of mysteries I read during my lifetime. It also coincided with the beginning of my real love for reading. I used to read also before that point, but not as consistently.

2. When I bought in a Salzburg (Austria) bookshop an obscure play by Elias Canetti. I just wanted a book to better my German, and I ended up with a book that changed my life, as I fell in love with Canetti and read everything he had written. I also wrote two papers on his books (just for Uni, though, not for actual publishing).

Marina wrote: "There have been two very significant moments in my reading life:

1. When in primary school the teacher asked us to bring to school books in order to lend them to each other. I came up with a myste..."

Thank you Marina. I plan to read Crowds and Power based on your love of Canetti.

The first day I stepped into Barnes & Noble Jr and was able to pick out my own book. I was awestruck when I saw a whole store of books that I could choose from and there was more than one so I didn't have to fight anyone for a copy.

My significant thing was when I had to go to my father's place on the weekends with my brother I would take about 10 books with me. I read books to escape the real world of my father not spending time with us or all of us just watching Tv or my father and my brother playing video games. I would read and imagine that I was along side the main characters in the story. Books really helped me in many different ways but this is the most significant since it was the beginning of my love of books. (Other than my mom and grandma always reading books to me when I was a young child)

I would say attention to detail. Once I got past childhood, my attentions turned to the likes of Janette Oke, Laura Ingalls Wilder, L. M. Montgomery and then Danielle Steel. Oke and Steel fashioned shuch detail in their stories that I felt transported to wherever and whatever I was reading ab out. Steel's No Greater Love (set around the theme of the Titanic) opened my eyes to the world of detail and the intricacies of describing the most mundane things(like china) in such detail that others could see it in their mind. Later, upon discovering Barbara Delinsky and Lavyrle Spencer, I would learn about research for a story but none of that would matter without the attention to detail

When I was little, my grandmother would lend me Stephen King books from her personal library. One day, I went to my mom and asked her what "decapitated" meant. Hahaha! She was not happy with grandma! After my next sleepover at grandma's house, she hugged me and whispered in my ear that she had stuck another book in my sleepover bag and pooh on mom. I loved that the two of us had a "secret"!

The moment that I knew I could read and when I first read Winnie-the-Pooh, I just fell in love with the written word.

I can't remember learning how to read. It seems that I've always been able to, although I know that's not likely. I entered kindergarten at age 4 and I could already read. I was constantly bored, so my teacher finally wished up and let me read whatever I wanted so that I wouldn't disrupt the whole class! The rest, as they say, is history.

There was several moments where it was significant in my reading life. I learned to read from street signs and I remember sitting in the back seat of the car and having my mom or my dad (I can't remember who) pointing them out and reading them with me. Kindergarten was also a really important part of my reading. I remember using all my spare time reading picture books, little by little. Than elementary school came and my teachers were so wonderful and the first chapter book I really read was Ramona Forever! I still have it and plan on having my kids read it too!