Why I Read

This was an essay I wrote a couple weeks ago for my college writing class. I thought I would share since I'm sure plenty of you can relate.

Nerdom

Only nerds read books. What an original statement. It’s the same thing I hear every time my siblings and friends catch me cuddled up on the couch flipping to the next page. Labeling readers as nerds naturally gives reading a negative image. Though truthfully, only positives can come from between the covers. The amount of available knowledge as well as entertainment through reading is endless.

This nerdy stereotype is construed by a series of false assumptions. Many think bookworms are formed due to a lack of friends. Or, they assume all readers hole themselves up in some lonely corner to cram as much knowledge into their brains as possible. However, I read for neither of these reasons.

Novels are a passageway into a different life. The pages of a book can come alive into scenarios I couldn’t normally experience. One day I can be a vampire princess ruling the European monarchy, and the next I can see the world through the eyes of a famous serial killer. Books allow me to temporarily live in worlds so foreign to my own. There’s simply nothing dorky about living.

Books also serve as an escape. Instead of failing at an attempt to sleep through a boring eight hour car ride, I can simply flip open a book. Time quickly changes from a standstill to race pace. An exciting novel can also quickly transform my surroundings. Just as I get bored of all things Bend Oregon, I can crack the cover of a world light-years away, erasing all my worries.

Though I don’t sit in an attic all night and cram unwilling information into my skull, I do enjoy the knowledge I gain through reading. Instead of learning through the medium of a dry textbook I can expand my knowledge through a gripping fictional story based in Elizabethan England. I almost consider reading a secondary education. There are many times I find myself bored in school because I have already learned through books what the teacher is lecturing about.

I don’t read for nerdy reasons. I read because it’s an adventure. It gives me a chance to experience the far corners of imagination and beyond. Reading is a highway to happiness, not nerdom. So the next time someone picks on you for reading just remember, the jokes on them.