I love to read because:-

[lucyellensmum]

I can emmerse myself in the story, there is an element of "me" in what i am reading and even though the words are there, a large amount of the story will be due to my own interpretation. You don't get that with the telly Also, i can pause to contemplate what i have just read, ok, so i know there is a pause button, but its not the same! When i am reading i am in another world and when i close the book, that other world is still real. Thoughts of what is happening in the book will entertain me/haunt me/trouble me/make me smile during the day, like it is part of my life. BBut i don't have to get stressed or anxious about it.

That's why i like to read - why do you?

[BeachBunni]

because I can get lost in a good book and I have a vivid imagination (so all my teachers told me - don't know if they meant it in a good way though ). Everyday worries can just fade away. Books are much more in depth than a tv programme or movie - you get more into the characters head. How many times have you watched a movie or programme based on a book and thought to yourself the book's far better?

[lucyellensmum]

loads In fact, every time

[Lauriefairycake]

cos it reaches the parts other mediums don't reach

[lucyellensmum]

Then its probably the best medium in the world

[HolidaysQueen]

... when you are in the midst of a wonderful novel you feel like a schoolkid again - all excited and full of anticipation, and you know you should switch the light out as it's naughty to be up so late and you'll feel knackered the next day but there's only another 100, 75, 50, 25 pages to go and you just know you can't stop until you find out the ending so you carry on reading until 1am, 2am, 3am and then can't sleep because you're so sad that the story is over and you'll never have that same excitement about that particular novel any more and you don't think any other book can ever top it.

I've just started reading my first novel since DS was born (3 months ago). I only got 10 pages read before I passed out in bed last night, but it was a wonderful 10 pages

[BeachBunni]

I'm glad someone else is like that. My dp reads to go to sleep, 2 pages and he's out like a light, and can't understand how if I read at night, I have to finish it - even if it takes me to 3 in the morning.

The best books for me are the one's where you wonder about the characters after it's finished. What happens to their life after the ending?

HolidaysQueen - my ds is 8 months and I think I've read about 20 books in the past 5 or so months (some were fluff I have to admit). It was bliss to finally get some time to myself at night and start reading again.

[squilly]

If I'm worried about anything, I tend to wake really early in the morning and get my book out. Just for half an hour or twenty minutes even, I'm transported. My worries are forgotten and I'm in another world.

Nothing else does that. The most engrossing tv, film or music will often provide little more than background 'noise' to annoying or troubling thoughts. A book makes them all go away...just like magic!

I lurve reading.

I feel so sorry for people who don't come to reading easily. That's why I like helping kids at school who are struggling...trying to imagine what life without reading and books would be like is just too frightening to contemplate.

[AbbeyA]

I love reading-it is like having your own cinema but much better because you have your own imagination to use rather than the director of the film. I like to read a book after the film because the book is always better and I get so disappointed the other way around. I like the way that a book allows you into the feelings and motivation of the character. If I read a good book I want to get to the end to see what happens but I can hardly bear to finish because I will have to leave it all behind! I get completely immersed and am oblivious to anything going on round about, it used to be embarrassing as a child because we could be reading in class and I would suddenly become aware that they had all got Maths books out! It saddens me when I go into schools and year 6 classes (good readers)will do anything to avoid reading.
I like the fact that you use your own interpretation. We have just read a book in my book group where the ending was a bit ambiguous and I imagined it quite differently from everyone else.
I have added to a thread about TVs in bedrooms-I can't imagine why anyone, of any age, would want a TV in a bedroom when they could have a book!!

[MrsTiddles]

"the one place where reader and author can meet in a private world of their own is on the pages of a novel"

cannot remember which writer wrote this, but seemed appropriate to this thread

[FlossieTCake]

Abbey, there are many films that I can't bear to watch because I have loved the book so much I can't handle the thought of having my mental picture disrupted!

HQ, so glad you are reading again

I love reading because:

I throw myself into the world of the book completely: everything else may as well not exist.

It is a private and intimate experience - no one else will ever relate to a book the same way you do because they are someone else. (Lucy Mangan, who normally I find irritating, wrote a very funny column a few weeks ago about book festivals being anathema to properly passionate readers for this sort of reason)

It takes me out of my daily life and into someone else's.

A really good book provokes emotions I never knew I was capable of.

I love to be that close to people - even if they are fictional - that I know what they are thinking and feeling about what is happening to them.

Good job I'm not a writer, eh?? That doesn't even come close to expressing how I feel about books. I can't imagine a world without reading. I wouldn't be Me without books.

[puffylovett]

Because you can skip to the end of a book and take a sneaky peak.

You can't do it to the same effect with a movie, and you certainly can't do it with Desperate Housewives !!

and also because reading is WHO I AM and always has been.

I was the bookworm in the classroom at school. Chest like an ironing board, humungous nose that was permanently in a book, but boy I could be someone else entirely when I was reading Little Women/David Eddings/Susan Cooper

[wrinklytum]

It costs nothing to join a library
It is something I can do while the dcs are in bed,and as someone whose partner is ill and in hospital lots it beats the telly on an evening, which can be long and lonely...
I've always enjoyed getting lost within a good book...

[AbstractMouse]

I don't know why but I can read my favourite books again and again, with film I can generally only watch once. Or several times with years and years in between.

I just love reading, love a book that hooks you and forces you to stay up until you have read the last page. Books I think involve more of your brain and are just altogether more subtle, they make me lol(or cry) far more than film.

My fondest memories of childhood are going to the musty old library (that smelled of books, and not a PC or coffee machine in sight) and choosing my 5 books. Then going home on a rainy grey day and curling up in bed/on the sofa and being utterly absorbed with the rain hitting the windowpane (don't think I have experienced such contenment since).

[thumbwitch]

Same as many of you - it takes me away from the real world, into the Other world of the book; makes me forget my own life and problems, expands my horizons, makes me laugh and cry and be horrified etc.

I could never not be a reader - my DH doesn't really get it, especially when I have also been up til 3am finishing a book that I just can't bear to put down!

When my first fiance left me, I read the whole collected works of Agatha CHristie in about 2 weeks... it was excellent for preventing me from dwelling on my own misery.

[muggglewump]

Because it's real for that moment when you're reading. In those pages is a whole other world, one I belong to.
It's better than telly, I have to work for it, and I can make it better with my imagination.

[littlewoman]

None of my kids are in the damned book.

If my problems are in the book, the author sympathises totally. The author and I are of one mind (unlike rest of world!)

Other people's problems in literature make you feel a lot better about your own life.

It stretches the brain, the understanding, of the reader.

You learn to put yourself in the place of others when reading - invaluable.

I'm an English student and I've been 'booked' to death over the last two years. But there is nothing like reading in the whole world. And only readers understand that.

[thumbwitch]

Am I the only one who doesn't like talking books? I hate the voices, unless it is just one person reading them straight - it messes with my own internal voices for the characters. I particularly loathe it when the characters are given random regional acceents for no apparent reason (although I think that was in a cartoon adaptation of a Terry Pratchett book - drove me NUTS!)

[InLoveWithSweeneyTodd]

I don't really know why I like reading, I just know I do. I enjoy reading, and the older I get and the less time I have for myself, the more I value reading time. I think it is an addiction.

[MsSparkle]

I like to read because i can use my imagination. Plus i kind of fall for the charactors as if they are real and i am going through their journey with them.

[Poppycake]

I like it because it fills my head with totally different ideas from what's happning in normal life - especially when normal life is pukey kids and ironing mountains!! Also when I haven't had the chance to talk to anyother grownups. Keeps me in a good mood

[littlewoman]

It's a world you can escape to when your own life gets a bit to mundane.

I hate talking books TW. It has to sound like your own voice inside your head, in order to transport you - I think, anyway

[TwoIfBySea]

• because for a little while I can escape. Sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad and sometimes for the scary.

[Ewe]

I love the escapism, I forget that I am tired, have loads of housework/washing etc.

I look forward to my little bit of me time before bed every night. Recently became a single parent and went for an early dinner the other night just me, DD (4months) and a good book. Was great

[Pavlovthecat]

It helps me sleep...

A book in my hand is a surefire way to send me to sleep. I dont even need to read it!

[EffiePerine]

I read all the time - for comfort, for distraction, for entertainment, for occupation. I love the books that make you stay up until 3 in the morning to finish them. I love the books I have read umpteen times and still re-read at least once a year. I love returning to old characters and places and discovering new ones. I love reading trash and serious tomes. I just love to read