Our Connection With Books Curling up with a good book in a comfortable chair or bed, on a park bench, or on the seat of a bus, is a pleasant pastime for many people. Whether fiction or non-fiction, books bring us pleasure. We read them for fun, to escape, to learn, to discover, to grow and improve. Books have been around for thousands of years. Even with the advent of modern technology such as television, computers and the Internet, books still play an important role in our lives. And despite even further rapid advances in technology, they likely will continue to play a large role for quite some time. When we read to our children, in addition to teaching, books help us to connect and form a bond. We can also read to our spouses, our friends, and the elderly. When we read to ourselves, we may connect to the adventurous hero within or the child we used to be. We also connect with the author of the book and the characters within its pages as well. Favorite books can grow ragged from wear, become marked heavily with a pen, pencil, or highlighter to help us find favorite passages, have their spines break, get torn and maybe even lose a page or two....and perhaps become even more loved because of it. Even reading poorly written books is not entirely a waste of time. We can laugh at how bad the book is, or find a hidden gem of a sentence that makes us laugh, cry, or think.

Fiction books range from fantasy, science fiction, romance, historical, humor, and much more. These books can capture our imaginations and help them grow while also giving us a break from our daily lives. Non-fiction books about history, biographies, science and nature, and various other topics can help us discover the past, other people, the world around us and more. Self-improvement books can help us discover ourselves. Whether checked out from a library, borrowed from a friend, received as a gift, or bought from a bookstore, bought online, or even stumbled across at a yard sale, the value of these books are priceless. When choosing books to read, look for reviews in magazines or other media sources, get the advice of friends who have similar interests, or ask the advice of an employee at a library or bookstore. Yet another option would be to take a chance by picking up a book at random, one that you normally might think you have no interest in. You might even wander into a new favorite this way. Time spent in libraries or book stores is time spent in a place that is not only a quiet haven, but is actually a gateway to new worlds waiting to be discovered.