Features  

Why Don’t You Read?

By Chidirim Ndeche

16 July 2017   |   9:30 pm

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on WhatsApp Share on Telegram

There is a debatable saying that Nigerians do not like to read. Some may give the excuse that they are too busy to pick up a good book from time to time. Others may try to avoid "bad" books and then use that as an excuse for not reading at all. Some may say that…

PHOTO: Squaredpixels/Getty

There is a debatable saying that Nigerians do not like to read.

Some may give the excuse that they are too busy to pick up a good book from time to time. Others may try to avoid “bad” books and then use that as an excuse for not reading at all. Some may say that they read a lot when they were little but dropped the habit along the line. Whatever your excuse may be, don’t you feel you should rethink it?

Reading is informative and can be extremely entertaining. Reading opens your mind to different forms of information that you may never have known if you did not read. Reading can also be a sword that equips you for those random arguments you may get into with other people. Reading can be a form of escape. From the time that you pick up an interesting book to the time that you drop it, you find yourself in an entirely different world.

These thought-provoking quotes should give you a reason to find time to pick up a book, or even read a short story online.

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… A man who never reads lives only once.
– George R. R. Martin

Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book.
–Anonymous

I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense.
–Harold Kushner

Great books help you understand, and they help you feel understood.
–John Green

A book is a device to ignite the imagination.
–Alan Bennett

That is a good book which is opened with expectation and closed with profit.
–Amos Bronson Alcott

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

There comes a time when you have to choose between turning the page and closing the book.
–Josh Jameson

A good book has no ending.
–R.D. Cumming

PHOTO: NBC news

Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.
–Frederick Douglas

If you are not sure where to begin or what books to pick up, you can find a book club or join a book-reading community around you. You could even form one with your friends. Choose a book to read and then set a time you can all work with to discuss the book. This will help draw you closer together, in the stories that you read and share. You may find yourself having amazing discussions with people you would normally not be able to stay alone with for minutes. Reading builds friendships.

Pick a book up today.