Today I wanted to share with my blog readers something that has given me constant solace and inspiration over the years. I love to read. I would no longer consider myself an avid reader, but reading will always be one of my favorite things to do, much preferred over cinema, social media, and sometimes even going out. I sometimes don’t have the patience to follow the pace of movies and television and always end up skipping around. But I can read at my own pace, and I will burn through good books.
Books are something that do not expect anything, but have boundless knowledge and emotion to offer. In the same way that I look to nature to alleviate some of worries, I look to books to reopen my eyes to our staggering world. That, by effect, diminishes some of my perceived problems.
Often it takes finding the right books to realize that you love reading. There are certain genres that I would not willingly reach for anymore, such as mystery or sci-fi or crime. My James Patterson days are long gone. As we grow up, our time becomes limited. I am no longer the child whose highlight of the week is checking out up to thirty books at the local library, and crawling into blankets to devour them one after another. Now I am the girl whose life has changed drastically from the past, but who still seeks to explore her interests and curiosity comprehensively, through the right books. Some of my favorite authors are Haruki Murakami, Milan Kundera, Oscar Wilde, and Xiaolu Guo. These authors explore the realms of passing time, serendipity, sentimentality, nostalgia, self-discovery, love, and culture. Nowadays when I have the time, I find myself always circling back to books writing on these themes.
The best feeling is when an author describes a sensation that you’ve experienced in their perfect words. It is like uncovering a piece of a soulmate, existing in a different place and different time. Those words are a perfect encounter.
To fall in love with reading is to seek more understanding and perspective in a topic or philosophy that interests you. It is also really lovely to dedicate some quiet time or a comfortable atmosphere to reading. In these pictures, I am in the office room in our home, which is filled with my dad’s overspilling bookshelves. (It runs in the family.)
I thought it was about time to do another lifestyle post. 🙂 I have another post on Shanghai reads that I wrote last September here.
Hope you enjoyed this post and have a miraculous day!
