How to Enjoy Literature

How to Enjoy Literature

I know there are plenty of people in the world that are incredibly intelligent and their brains are whirring with a constant storm of ideas...but they HATE reading. Actually,literature is one of the best ways to provoke thought and I would like to introduce you to ways that can help you expand your horizons in the literature category.

1: Find some kind of reading material. Classic literature might bore you to tears and feel like to work, therefore, I suggest looking for something with a catchy title, such as: A Clockwork Orange, You Suck, or Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

2: Annotate, Annotate, Annotate. Once you get started, if there are any words you don't know, pull out a dictionary and find out. Reading will be so much more enjoyable if you know what you're reading. Analyze morals and values presented in the novel. Do you agree? Why not? Talk about it! You can get into some amazing conversations that way! If a sentence doesn't make sense, check out the syntax. Where's the verb and who's performing it? You don't have to read in a typical way. Break down everything into forms that you like. If you own the book, make it yours. Make side notes, highlight things, whatever you think you should make stand out.

3: Move on. If you hate the book, stop reading. Make sure that you give the book of your choice a chance, but if it's putting you over the edge, pass it elsewhere. I wouldn't want you to get burned out already!

4: Think about it. Always reflect on the book. Why do you think the author wrote it? What inspired them? Could you write something similar? Who did they write it for? Questions like these could help you understand their thought process.

5: Write about it. Even if you would never show it to anyone, write a mini book review of the book. What did you love? What did you hate?

6: What did you think of the genre? If you liked it, stay with it. If not, try another.

7: If you'd like to skip all of that writing, just do it mentally. Sometimes putting your thoughts on paper allows you to pinpoint your exact opinion, but writing is not for everyone.

8: Ask around. Ask the people you know if they have read your book. Did they think the same way you did about it? If so, how does it make you feel to find someone who loved the book as much as you did?

9: New ideas and outlooks. So, there were some seriously off the wall morals in your novel. Were you crazy about that new kind of thinking? Do you want to adopt that? Do you want to be just like one of the characters? Do it! That's one of the great things about literature, authors have ideas that they want to share and get people thinking about. If you adopt those values, the author accomplished their purpose. Some books are just morbid. That's a beautiful part of writing as well, the fact that nothing is censored and the author wrote from their heart and you get a little piece of that authenticity. If it freaked you out, take that as a learning experience to all the types of thinking people across the globe indulge in.

10: Seriously, just enjoy it! That's what you came to do. Try hard to make reading great! If it still isn't for you, try audiobooks. Those are another way to hear a story without reading.