I guess I have been wasting my time, immersing in non-fiction.
So one need learn to read to learn empathy huh...?

I don't know what it does to your brain, but it makes you near-sighted as heck!

Tell me, I would really like to know

I go to a thrift shop for my books and buy a few if they have some I haven't read . I give more money and then some to the charity itself and when i finish reading them I take them back again. I like it as there are mmany books there that i have read many times but can't remember (I'm 70+)

It makes my brain awfully damn happy !

I don’t know it my mother raised me to respect books.... “If one can burn books are people not far behind “. I have read 100s of books in recent years mostly WW2 and political and bios.... I don’t know about others but I really do get lost in books. For an example I’ve been read much on the Marines in the pacific and more specifically the island hoping which almost brings me to tears....

I learned to read at a really young age, four years old, I seemed to just crack the code (wish I could have done the same for maths) I remember the most beautiful trip was walking from our house to the library which used to be a Manor House and was situated in parkland with ducks and geese and swans on the lake; so it was tempting to go - I had seven books out on my ticket and the Librarian wanted to find out if I had actually read them all in the one week so she quizzed me about the stories and I answered all her questions about the plotlines etc. and she allowed me to go to the adult section of the library thereafter.

So I think it does do something to your brain expands a consciousness that wouldn't otherwise be there - a sense of otherness and the point of relationship and also a love of story - I think that the most intimate times in my life have been in personal storytelling group s in a large tipi with a fire and sharing stories of your past and how different everyones stories are.

Great article!

It raises my spirits. Seriously, the shit some people know. Right now it's The Language Of Creation by Matthieu Pageau. I don't know what I would do without these people.

Soaks it in knowledge.

Depends on what kind of book you're reading. ?

I don’t know what it does my brain....I just know I love whatever it is! Haven’t been reading so much since joining this site though, but for the winter ahead I have a whole stash ready and waiting!!

I do not know what I would do without books. When I am finishing a great book, I hate to see it end. I almost feel like I am losing a friend when I close the cover. A book that I recently finished, "A Gentleman in Moscow", was one such book. I wish I had known this man, and I learned a lot about perspective and honor from this book. I keep giving books away to the "Friends of the Library" store, only to find more books that I want to read. What a happy problem.

Very interesting! I have been a book reader for years and I just gave up my more than a thousand books, as I am downsizing! I also had a period where I did not want to read, the thoughts of other people...I wanted to delve deeper into what my own thought are! However, I am starting to collect books again! Just cannot stop reading and it may be more important than I realized, even in old age!

Since I was a child, I have immersed myself in reading books. Reading teaches me about different cultures, people, countries, parts of the country, families and lifestyles.

In my teens, I began doing literature surveys, reading great authors from different countries and cultures. I extensively read Russian literature from Dostoyevsky to Solzhenitsyn.

South American literature, with its fascinating mix of mysticism, magical thinking and religion. Pablo Neuruda, Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Amado and Isabel Allende.

Black literature, gay literature: all increased my understanding and compassion for other people.

Reading immeasurably enriches my life.