by Kat Altomonte
I like pink, unicorns, sparkles, and (loooove omg) One Direction. Taylor Swift is my hero and I cried when I wasn’t able to watch the Biebs’ concert in Manila. I’m a fangirly girly girl and everyone knows it. What people don’t know and don’t often ask about me is that I spend a whole lot of my time reading sci-fi and fantasy books and getting a stuffy nose from the allergies I get from flipping through old pages.
It’s crazy how one book can reveal a whole other world to you! One of the most brilliant and hilarious books I have ever read was The Hogfather written by Terry Pratchett. I reread it every year before Christmas – it’s that good! The book contains subplots that lead up to one big story on the Hogfather’s (similar to Santa) disappearance and Susan, Death’s granddaughter, trying to find him.
The text of the book is a powerful experience. The first read will have you confused with a normal premise that twists into action you wouldn’t expect. It reveals how limited your world and your thinking is and pushes you to engage in the text to build a framework for growth. The text gives you so much mystery and excitement that your mind becomes more receptive to new ideas and more possibilities. It gives you an opportunity to maximize your creativity in looking for and finding answers to the questions we have about our own lived experiences. The text is very engaging, funny, and will open you to be insightful. It celebrates the innovation and creativity behind the human mind.
Death: YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
Susan: "So we can believe the big ones?"
Death: YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
Susan: "They're not the same at all!"
Death: YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THENSHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
Susan: "Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"
Death: MY POINT EXACTLY.”
To be honest I'ver never been a book person because I always thought of it as quite childish or useless even. It's only been quite recently since I've developed interest and admiration for books. You helped reaffirmed my new perspective for books through your post. I agree with you now that reading books is a powerful experience. For me it is literally living out the experience of the author. We come in contact with his life his creation. Books just prove how communication with others is essential in order to learn about our neighbors and ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI too have never been a book-person before college. But after a couple of good books, I began to see the world in different lights. Every book that I've read changed my life in ways that I nobody can ever reverse (maybe a better book could). If I had any regrets, one would be reading at a late stage in my life.
ReplyDeleteLately, all I've been reading are textbooks and I rarely have the time to read just for leisure. I see that no matter what, everyone must read. It could be a textbook, a sci-fi book or even a comic. Anything that can be read, can help develop us as people. We can somehow connect to the stories we read to our everyday lives and apply it. Reading is one special way to open our minds to the author or characters in the story and experience what they're going through. Doing so not only enriches our knowledge, but broadens our perspective to their lives and others. Even if they're fictional characters or not!
ReplyDeleteIt's been a year since I last read a book just for entertainment but I agree that texts really broaden your perspective as it opens a world very different from what you have right now. Texts share experiences and sentiments of different kinds of people and let you experience them through imagination. Reading a good way to understand people more and form new perspectives. I think its time for me to read another book.
ReplyDelete-Diane Cheng (A)