read read read

I came across one article today, and I very much think that this is a very brilliantly written words - and I like it. Click here to read Neil Galman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming. Come on click and read it! :D

Few favourite points of mine;

1. I like how he started about people being biased - including himself in this article. An author discussing about reading, perhaps is like a fishmonger talking about how good fish is for your health.

So I'm biased as a writer. But I am much, much more biased as a reader. And I am even more biased as a British citizen.

Cool, right?

2. This bit literally dropped my jaw. Seriously?

I was once in New York, and I listened to a talk about the building of private prisons – a huge growth industry in America. The prison industry needs to plan its future growth – how many cells are they going to need? How many prisoners are there going to be, 15 years from now? And they found they could predict it very easily, using a pretty simple algorithm, based on asking what percentage of 10 and 11-year-olds couldn't read.  

 I mean, we somehow have the idea somewhere in our minds that illiteracy has something to do with crime rates. Perhaps we once wrote that one of our essays during our school years. But predicting the growth of prisons from the number of illiterates is really something. Googling private prisons made me jatuh kerusi some more.

3. There is no bad books. To some extent I disagree with this point. Yes to not labelling books especially for children, especially if we are imposing our likes of books to them and denying their right (hence interest) to pick their own titles and authors.

Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child's love of reading: stop them reading what they enjoy, or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like, the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian "improving" literature. 

On top of that I do think adults should monitor children's and adolescents choices of book to read. Well I might be biased as well, upon reading this I was being reminded of how I really not in favour of 'novel-novel picisan' back in SMAPL years, even until now. Come on, where are we heading if the brains of nation are reading sebenarnya aku isteri dia, playboy itu suamiku and suamiku ustaz types of novels? Gaah.

I think this post is long enough, and writing with proper English makes me tired and disheartened to continue. Bahahaah. All in all, I gained a lot from this article. I am more appreciative of my interest in books and how I grew up with them, made me reflects on how reading changes my life. The obligations that he outlined are also mind boggling.

We all – adults and children, writers and readers – have an obligation to daydream. We have an obligation to imagine. 

Best woi. Okay toodles!

Assalamualaikum wbt