A Book for Every Reader

Books for Sale, NYC by Duane Keiser

Some people just don't like reading. Some people think it's boring, or pointless, or difficult, or a waste of time. Some people think it's for girls or for children, especially when it comes to fiction. Some people think it's tiresome or outdated or would be easier and more efficient to summarize with ChatGPT. I have a theory, however, that these people simply haven't found the right book. 

I've lived my whole life as a reader. I attempted Tolkien's The Hobbit in kindergarten, and begged my mother to let me read Hugo's Les Misérables in fifth grade. (She said no to both of these endeavours. I have now read The Hobbit four-ish times and have yet to open Hugo.) I devoured books all throughout elementary and middle school, began writing seriously in eighth grade, and find it very difficult to go for any sustained period of time without talking. I love words and the books we read them in. 

My younger brother and sister, however, do not. My sister is dyslexic and finds reading both laborious and unpleasant. My brother has a short attention span and would rather be playing video games or fishing. Over the years, I've coerced them into reading a novel here and there, and they suffer through their assigned books for school, but to no enjoyment. Until, however, last week. 

For his summer reading, my brother was assigned two books. The first was L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, which he borrowed from me and hated. (I adore both this book and the rest of the series, but do not recommend the movie adaptation.) The second was Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place. For the first time in recent history, my brother admitted he had enjoyed the book. He was as nonchalant as the typical teenage boy, but still, he enjoyed it. What's more, he requested that my mom buy him another book, this time a non-fiction history of Christian martyrs. 

I was shocked. Not only had he chosen a book for himself, but it was a book I never would have guessed. Not the typical action-packed robots-and-punches type story expected of a thirteen-year-old boy, but a dense historical text on figures whose names I hardly knew. He is not only reading it willingly, but is enjoying it and sharing his findings with the rest of his family. 

"It's well known that our inept homegrown police of all eras have always shown unerring taste in poets and writers - they always manage to kill the most talented and leave the most mediocre." 
- Georgi Gospodinov's Time Shelter

If my brother, of all people, can find a book he enjoys, I guarantee you can too. Here's the thing: for most of us, our understanding of how reading works comes from school, where we are assigned texts that we either dislike or are so heavily forced to analyze that we lose all appreciation for them. Even for willing students like myself, literature can become loathsome when it is too forcibly turned into objective material for study. Many of us see reading as something boring, forced, and inapplicable to our lives. 

When we read independently, however, there are so many benefits and freedoms that accompany the endeavour. Through reading, we learn to analyze, understand, and refute arguments. We learn to empathize with others, and we gain knowledge about other cultures and parts of the world, or even our own neighbors. We learn to process complex ideas and express them to others, and we receive new vocabulary with which to converse. There are real, applicable skills that we gain by reading, and some people never bother to pursue them because they have learned to approach literature from a false perspective. 

I truly believe that everyone can be a reader. There is a medium and subject for everyone. For the person who struggles with imperfect vision or dyslexia, there are audiobooks, large print editions, and e-books. For the one who adores watching the news, there are historical texts diagnosing real social issues and addressing their solutions. For the short attention span, there are hundreds of beautiful short stories. For the deep thinker with a wide imagination, there are sprawling epic fantasies. For the person who wants to understand their peers, there are memoirs and realistic fiction. For the busy worker who needs to slow down, there is poetry. There is a story for everyone, and if the story you want or need does not exist, you ought to write it. 

Everyone can be a reader. You just have to find the right book.