An Addendum

It's been on my mind again how important it is to read good literature. We can learn not only many facts through books, but also gain much insight into human nature and psychology. Reading challenges our ideas and makes our minds stronger. For me, reading "The Sun Also Rises" was a perfect example of being challenged by the literature and then learning and growing from it.

I've mentioned it before, but I hate hate HATE book snobs. Especially the people who claim that they are so busy that they only have time for non-fiction. What is that supposed to mean? What do they expect to gain by reading non-fiction? Are they in the middle of saving the world? Is there a cancer cure that they are going to discover by connecting all their non-fiction books' dots together? Really, is another Michael Pollan book out there that is going to absolutely change everything for you if you read it?

In my opinion, a lot of non-fiction is a platform for someone to voice their opinion on something. In fact, maybe I should write a non-fiction book that is my opinion on why we shouldn't limit ourselves to non-fiction. I have nothing against non-fiction, I enjoy it at times. I just despise people who purposely read it like it's this life mission and they can't waste their time or be bothered with other books. I feel like we have so much to learn from fiction. Maybe I won't learn about bad farming practices in the United States, or be converted to eating organically from fiction - but I will learn more about humanity and empathy. I feel like I will grow more in the aspects of actually being a human by reading fiction.

In my AP US History class, we were playing some game testing our WWII trivia. I was killing it for our team. I seriously knew all the answers, and I knew that I hadn't learned these answers in class or in the textbook. One of my teammates asked how I knew some of the answers. I thought about it and realized that I had read about them in fiction books. That was one moment when I understood what people meant when they said they learned from reading. The things I learn now are probably more ephemeral than what a Victory Garden is, but I think they are just as important.

There has been some research recently that suggests that reading fiction makes us more empathetic people. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-oatley/is-fiction-good-for-you_b_939121.html It refers to reading here as "deep reading". I think that this is some very interesting stuff and totally supports me in all that I'm saying because I am so smart.

Finally, I'm not a book snob. I own an embarrassing amount of LDS romance novels, even after donating boxes of them to a prison once for someone's Eagle Scout Project. (I sometimes wonder what those prisoners thought of them :). I also love Twilight and Harry Potter. I can appreciate a good story and enjoy it for what it is. It's a little embarrassing for me to admit these things, but that's exactly why I'm doing it. I don't think we should shame people about what they are reading. If you like it, read it. If it's fun, read it. You don't have to be a snooty snooty-pants about everything in life. I write on the blog about books that have made me think, but I don't want to give the impression that I only read hoity-toity books and that I'm sooo intelligent. I have a very high threshold for bad fiction.