Reading Culture

As far as I can remember I've always enjoyed reading, can't really remember for how long but it's always been a kind of getaway from the world and it's numerous problems. I could just easily loose myself in some fictional world.

I just finished reading a particular series this morning and I think this would be my second or third time reading it over again. You can begin to understand the power of a good book. Unfortunately with so much happening today the reading culture has continued to die down.

I've enjoyed the works of a lot of different authors, mostly i like books that are adventurous and have loads of fantasy. One of my favorite authors of all time is J.K Rowling for the Harry Potter series ( I can't count the number of time i've read them over the past ten years. Another one I can't forget is Stephen Baxter, you need to read to read books like flood and Ark to see the imagination put into writing these books. Then there's Space Odyssey, by Arthur C Clarke, another series i spent over a year reading because the amount of science and technology was mind blowing for me then.

Reading has expanded my vocabulary a lot, as I used to have a poor grasp of the English language. Over the years I've come to understand that exposure and experience shape our minds in very great ways. You might not have the resources and financial capabilities to tour and see different cultures. But you can understand a culture to an extent from reading about them.

A number of factors have caused the decrease in amount of readers, some are good and some are not. For instance in my country Nigeria, my experience has shown that economic situations have led a lot of people to loose Interest in anything education related and focus more on survival related things. Afterall like some people say (Na who don chop beleful dey read book) you don't expect an hungry man to be interested in reading a book.

Another situation is the advent of technology, particularly social media has reduced the number of interested readers. There's just so much going on social media nowadays that it's not surprising we have dwindling number of readers.

Reading actually was the start of my interest in writing. Seeing different people with such creative ideas, you begin to think of ways to put out your own ideas as well.

The importance of reading cannot be overemphasized, as it has played an important role in our development as humans.

It would be a nice change if economic situations can get better here. And people can start focusing not always on what to eat, but sometimes what to read.

What are your favorite books and who are their authors?