Books in Our Life
Nowadays it's almost
impossible to imagine our life without books. Perhaps, there are more books on
our planet than men alive.
Long before the invention of
printing people valued books as treasure troves of the human knowledge and
experience. Hand — written manuscripts took months of writing and were
collected by and kept in monasteries with utmost care. We can distinguish books
between three classes of them.
Firstly, books on different
branches of knowledge, works by brilliant minds of mankind. Secondly,
textbooks, reference books and numerous dictionaries. And at last, books of all
kinds and genres to read at leisure.
Classics should be taken a
little at a time. One's understanding of books by Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky,
Mopassan and Balzak depends on one's age and experience.
Serious books are to be read
conscientiously and maybe more than once. To a thinking reader they will provide
new food for thought every time he rereads it. Many people indulge in reading
science fiction, fantasy or detective stories. Of course, there are some
advantages and disadvantages of this kind of literature, often reffered to as
«easy reading».
As for me, good science
fiction and fantasy develop imagination, logical thinking, broader one's
outlook.
The same could be said in
favour of detective stories. They reveal such minute details of everyday life
in this or that particular country that are of greatest interest for a curious
reader. The masterpieces of this genre by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha
Christie and others, show the depths of psychological analysis, the insight
into the human nature.
As an old saying goes, man
cannot live on bread alone. Books are the source of knowledge and the means of
self — perfection. Sometimes it is difficult to solve some problems in life. I
think that books can help us. Books must be our friends during all our life.
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