Reading

北辰

Reading is a pleasure of the mind， which means that it is a little like a sport： your eagerness and knowledge and quickness make you a good reader. Reading is fun， not because the writer is telling you something， but because it makes your mind work. Your own imagination works along with the authors or even goes beyond his. Your experience， compared with his， brings you to the same or different conclusions①， and your ideas develop， as you understand his.

Every book stands by itself， like a one-family house， but books in a library are like houses in a city. Although they are separate， together they all add up to something; they are connected with each other and with other cities. The same ideas， or related ones， turn up in different places. Books influence each other; they link the past， the present and the future and have their own generations②， like families. Wherever you start reading you connect yourself with one of the families of ideas， and， in the long run， you not only find out about the world and the people in it; you find out about yourself， too.

Reading can only be fun if you expect it to be. If you concentrate on books somebody tells you “ought” to read， you probably wont have fun. But if you put down a book you dont like and try another till you find one that means something to you， and then relax with it， you will almost certainly have a good time and if you become， as a result of reading， better， wiser， kinder， or more gentle， you wont have suffered during the process.

讀書是一種精神享受，這意思是說讀書好像一種運動。你的渴望，你所掌握的知識以及你的機敏程度，這些都將使你成為一名善于讀書的人。讀書很有樂趣，這不僅僅是因為作者向你講述了什么，也因為讀書能使你開動腦筋思考。你自己的想象同作者的想象不謀而合，甚至超越作者的想象。你的經歷同作者的經歷相比較，會使你得出與作者相同或相異的結論。當你領會了作者的觀點以后，你自己的觀點便形成了。

每一本書如同一戶人家的房子，孑然而立;而圖書館里的書就像城市中的建筑物一樣，鱗次櫛比。盡管每本書彼此互不相連，但是要把它們放在一起，意義就不同了。書籍相互間都是有聯系的。彼城的書同此城的書也是有聯系的，相同或相近的觀點在不同的作品中表現出來。書籍之間互相影響，它們聯系著過去、現在和未來，像家族一樣，代代相傳。無論你從哪里開始讀起，你都會把自己同其中一族的觀點聯系起來，最后你不僅洞察了那個世界和生活在其中的人們，你也認識了自己。

只有把讀書當成樂趣，它才會成為樂趣。如果你只集中精力閱讀別人要求你讀的那些書，那么你可能永遠也不會以讀書為樂。相反，如果你把自己不喜歡的書擱在一旁，試著去讀另一本書，直到找到一本對你有意義的書，然后輕松愉悅地讀起來，那么你一定會感到很愜意。假如因為博覽群書，你變得更加高尚、更加聰慧、更加善良、更加文雅，那么，你就不會覺得讀書是件苦差事了。