Why We Read

There are many reasons why someone might choose to pick up a book. During my time working at The Imaginarium I’ve had a lot of wonderful conversations with customers and discovered a variety of reasons why someone chooses to read. Here are some of the reasons why we read:

To Escape

Being one of the biggest reasons and my own personal reason for reading. A lot of us readers just want to get out of this world, to get away from the reality of our lives, even if it’s just for a little while. Life can be difficult most of the time, it presents challenges, disappointments and tragedies that we don’t want to deal with or aren’t coping with so diving into a book that’s set in space, in a realm completely made up or even just focusing on a person that isn’t ourselves makes the world of difference to how we as individuals cope with real life.

To Learn

Reading isn’t always about being entertained or escaping reality. It can be a gateway to learning everything and anything about the world we live in. Some people enjoy discovering everything they can about the world, people, nature, historic events. Some might have a specific interest such as geography and if travelling isn’t an option then there are plenty of amazing books that show off our beautiful world in incredible detail. If you have a special interest such as mythology or even a completely different hobby to reading like pottery or knitting then there always books out there to give more information.

To Find Meaning

Reading is a sanctuary and sometimes life is hard and we need to escape to that sanctuary, things happen that make us feel like there’s no meaning left in the world. Books have a life-giving power of bringing that meaning back to us when we’re trying to make sense of the world or ourselves. We can feel like we live fully when reading a book and internalize them in a way that makes them an essential part of who we are. It can also be a truly nourishing form of reading, by reading the writing of interesting minds, we can both meditate with our minds and theirs and to quote Margaret Atwood, “The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature.”