We all love reading to expand our worlds, be entertained, learn, be inspired, be intrigued. Anais Nin writes a nice tribute to reading in this diary entry:
"The reading of books is in itself the most beautiful education of all. Because of reading I became acquainted with the entire world, physical, intellectual, historical, scientific. My life was expanded. The knowledge of what existed in the world, in other countries, of the possibilities and potentialities of life, prepared me for experience, for the unknown, for unfamiliar situations. Only by reading does one possess such a power to travel, to visit all the lands, to make friends with characters of all periods, so that one learns to observe the riches of the present and the possible loves and friendships around us. Through books, I discovered everything to be loved, explored, visited, communed with. I was enriched and given the blueprints to a marvelous life, I was consoled in adversity, I was prepared for both joys and sorrows, I acquired one of the most precious sources of strength of all: an understanding of human beings, insight into their motivations, I also learned from books how to enhance what needed to be enhanced, by understanding, and by aesthetics. Books are the greatest companions, confessors, confidantes, tutors, a source of pleasure, a cure for loneliness, and to find one, in the middle of an island in Tahiti, in the heart of the Moroccan desert, or at an airport where one is stranded for a night, is to find the friend who reminds us we are not alone."
Some of my favorite books in addition to everything by Anais Nin, Hermann Hesse, and May Sarton include The Stranger by Albert Camus, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, and The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
What are your favorites?
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