Literal functions.
The Book Blockade issue was going on for weeks. I wasn't active until the end - well we didn't know it was the end, or if it's really the end. I attended the RockEd Book Bigayan.
Giving away books has always made me happy. I read them, and don't collect them. I treasure the ideas much more than the books themselves. I rarely reread them because I never run out of new things - most of my reading is now online.
Literacy in the Philippines has been on my mind. I've always been the book elitist, preferring non-fiction over fiction, with a specific bias against narratives. My reading brain doesn't deal with them well. My upbringing reading encyclopedia volumes plus my very fast reading speed spoils my ability to enjoy stories since my eyes skip up and down. With this bias, I most probably aren't fair but I like to impose what is good reading.
I'd like people to choose what they read wisely. Reading material is expensive and imports books or raw materials - as what we've discussed at the Book Blockade. Reading takes our time, and environment resources - paper pulp and ink - all of which we can't get back.
The power of reading is multiplied when discussing - online and offline. We see different aspects of what we read as they are mirrored through people who are not themselves. I have witnessed this in the past by joining a Book Club, and look forward to this again. Curated reading is something I can use, since I'm not a book lover at heart.
The literal function is making the best use of reading and its culture which has evolved through thousands of years of the written word, and the millions of years of thought and sentience.
1 Comments:
I might be the opposite. I grew up reading komiks. You read it. Komiks, as in Tagalog komiks, etc. whether they are serialized in magazines or in komiks like Aliwan or whatever they were back then. I read all sorts of fiction. Whatever I could read, haha. That's the thing with me, I think even 'trashy books' have their purpose. Even if others might say it promotes escapism, it does help one's imagination to grow. Or at least it helps people feel human because the characters might be 2D but one could feel an attachment to them or so much hate. From time to time, I remember old novels I've read in the past and think about their mistakes and I wonder if I am doing the same things. That's what reading those trashy novels did to me :P At least I get to think twice before I decide on certain life-changing matters.
I also read non-fiction. It is good for me to learn new things and share these ideas with others. It shapes my ideologies and beliefs.
For me non-fiction talks to my brain directly but fiction talks to my heart and my soul directly. (Some might argue that it's all going the brain but different parts of the brain. I don't care. I'd rather think about it this way.) It's what gives me balance. I suppose one can get the 'heart and soul' from music but the written word has its own place for me.
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