My reading tastes, for the most part, skew toward the supernatural, but I like just about everything. I’m not big on biography, not into sports, whether I’m playing them or reading about them, and I studiously avoid the “inspirational” section. But when I’m in a library or a bookstore, it’s like the books are all shouting in their seductive, quiet, whispery way, “Open me! Slide your finger down my book jacket as you read the synopsis!” They sit patiently on the shelf, watching my indecisive face, jumping with excited, glittering spines like puppies in the window of a pet store. But it won’t do to go home with any old book. I have to believe that it will wake me up, challenge me, teach me something new, interest me with beautiful prose.
Why it’s important to challenge yourself as a reader:
* I want you to think of yourself as being in a relationship with your intelligence. If you were in a relationship with someone who never did anything new, never took you anywhere you’d never been before, never made you feel appreciated, you’d want to leave. At least, I would. That sounds like a boring, dying relationship, and I’m not into that.
* I don’t know if you know this, but coma patients that wake up after months or years without moving, even chewing food, have muscles that have atrophied (that means they have become weak and useless from having done nothing for so long) and they can’t move very well on their own anymore. They have to spend years in rehab just relearning to walk so they can take themselves to the bathroom. If you don’t read something new, your brain is going to atrophy and you will not be able to think for yourself anymore (at least not well).
* To paraphrase the Lion King, there is more to read than can ever be read. You will never be able to read everything in your lifetime, or even someone else’s lifetime. Challenge accepted.
* Don’t get me wrong. I like to go back and re-read things that I’ve enjoyed before. You’re probably sick of me talking about it, but I don’t care. I have read the entire Harry Potter series all the way through at least six times, and I’m going to keep reading them until I die. There are other series or books (also plays like Shakespeare) that I have read multiple times as well, because they’re just so good it’s not enough to only read them once.
* Not everyone is cut out for Shakespeare level reading, and that’s okay. Even if you are the type of person who enjoys cheap, pulpy, half-edited dreck (or–gasp!–People magazine), at least you’re reading something. I’ve had conversations with people who tell me they don’t read, and I instantly become less interested in knowing them. It’s like a switch gets flipped inside my head and I think that oh-so-judgemental “Oh.” It doesn’t mean we will never be friends. It just means that I am less likely to try to have intelligent conversation with that person.
* Why my reading challenge for the year is Shakespeare’s completed works: I’ve never read his early plays, I haven’t read all of his sonnets, and because I have a very large copy of his complete works that’s been sitting on my bookshelf mocking me with it’s unopened pages. That ends this year. I’m going to call it the Year of the Bard.
I know we’re starting the third month of the year, but I want you to set a reading challenge for yourself this year. It doesn’t have to be about quantity. Reading more is certainly a good goal to set, but don’t be afraid to think outside the big box bookstore. It could be something that’s been sitting on your shelf forever that you’ve been meaning to get to, or it could be that you want to get to a new reading difficulty level. Whatever it is that you feel is going to challenge you, do it.
May the page-turners be with you.
Thalia Huntley 