What is the purpose of a book?
- To spend time in another person’s (the character’s)point of view
- To spend time in another person’s (the author’s)point of view
- To investigate the tension between the character’sand author’s point of view and see what that tells us about the author and
ourselves
- To approach an experience that would terrify us in real life at a remove
- To walk up to the edge of cliff with the promise we can’t fall off
- To hear what It feels like to fall off a cliff from someone who survived it
- To be surprised
- To make our own problems feel small by becoming overwhelmed by someone else’s
- To make ourselves feel wise by solving someone else’s problems
- To be in a place that otherwise we could not be, to spend time in sensibility we otherwise could not access
- To imagine rich and precious moments and hear them described by someone who appreciates the same things about them in a way that makes them new again
- To feel less alone
Why do you read?