Books- A-Z Challenge 2012

Books is a pretty obvious chose for my b word, but I just could not help myself. Books are precious. They are windows into great knowledge, to imagination, to fantasy, to reality, to whatever you love, or even what you hate, or do not care about at all. When you open up a book you never know what you will find.

Covers, and even descriptions, can make you think you are getting a simple story, but you quickly find yourself lost in complexities that were unexpected. Sometimes the opposite happens. I think any book has value, as long as it makes you think and/or feel. Even if the feeling you have s the urge to throw the book across the room, because it has elicited a response. It is the books that leave me cold, with the 'blah' feeling when I am done that hold the least vale for me. However, even in those books you can learn something. Like how not to write books that will not hold the interest people like yourself.

Even in non fiction, you can be surprised by what you find. In Quiet by Susan Caine I discovered bits and pieces of myself in her stories. In Paradise Lust I found hope, humor, and heartfelt souls looking for the Garden of Eden. I am not usually a big non fiction reader, mainly because I read to escape to conflicts and chaos that can often fill day to day life. Usually my non fiction consists of children's non fiction or books about practical subjects like gardening of herbal remedies to expand my practical knowledge instead of getting lost in the pages. So when a work of non fiction catches my attention, I think it is really special.

The really wonderful things about books it that they can take you places. A group of people reading the same book will be able to discuss and share what they thought of the book, and how t made them feel, but everyone will get something a little different from each. Our worlds and perceptions are so colored by our pasts, hopes, and current stresses that twelve people with the same basic tastes in books can have twelves very different responses to a book. When the enter the world of the book, they can picture very different scenery and characters despite reading the same words. I think the same holds true for all forms of art. It is the wonder of getting lost in a world partially created by your mind, started by someone else's words, that makes getting lost in art so amazing.