In Defense of Reading for Pleasure

What summer reminded me about reading without an agenda

I love books.

I love books so much that I pressure visitors into taking home the ones I think they will like.

I talk about books, brag about what I have read, and insist I know exactly which ones my friends should read next.

My passion for books—and my belief in the importance of reading—led me to become an English teacher so I could literally talk about books all day long. Year after year, students walked into my classroom convinced they hated reading. That never bothered me.

What bothered me was the thought that they simply had not been exposed to the book that would hook them into a lifelong love of reading.

Countless hours went into searching for the right books to put into their hands. When I finally found one that fit and saw a student's eyes light up, my heart soared. It did not matter whether the book appeared on a list of great literature. The student was reading—and enjoying it. Finding a book they would actually read was a win.

There is a book for everyone.

When someone tells me they do not like reading, I suspect they simply have not found the right one yet.

One of my proudest accomplishments began with finding books for a friend who never read. Years later, she is a celebrated children's book author; in fact, one of her stories is being adapted into a performance by the Colorado Symphony. That success is entirely the result of her own talent and hard work, but I do love knowing that my encouragement helped her become a reader.

Reading is about discovering what you love—not checking books off a list of “must-reads” or dutifully working your way through the literary canon.

If you develop a love of reading, you may naturally find your way to the classics, but the classics are not the price of admission. Although I love the classics and believe literature matters deeply, I do not believe every book has to teach us something, challenge us, or expose us to a new idea.

Sometimes reading is simply a way to escape.

Growing up, I read anything and everything I could get my hands on: books, magazines, even the back of the cereal box. We did not have phones; we could not scroll through our day.

While my family did not agree on much throughout my childhood, reading was one thing they all enjoyed and encouraged. My parents modeled it by always having a book nearby. My mother signed me up for summer reading programs at the Marietta library from the moment I could hold a library card, and my grandmother was a voracious reader who churned through books—especially mysteries. I definitely got my love of the genre from her.

Along with a love of reading, my family also provided me with a chaotic and traumatic childhood.

I learned early how to use books to step outside my reality.

They gave me somewhere else to go when I could not change where I was.

Through vibrant stories, I could instantly enter new surroundings, take on amazing challenges, and escape the heaviness of my real life.

Books, libraries, and schools became my refuge.

They protected me and taught me how much I could learn through reading.

One afternoon in our elementary school, the librarian offered a piece of advice that has stayed with me throughout my life: If you start a book and discover that you do not enjoy it, stop. Put it down and choose another.

There are far too many books in the world to spend your time reading one you do not like.

Her philosophy became mine, and I carried it into my own classroom. I never subscribed to the one-book-fits-all theory. I wanted my students to love reading, and it is difficult to love something you are always forced to do. Rather than assigning one book to the entire class, I kept a classroom library and encouraged students to choose what interested and excited them.

Although I am no longer in the classroom, I am still an avid reader, and still determined to help other people fall in love with books.

These days, so much competes for our attention. There are endless screens to stare at, headlines to absorb, and problems we cannot solve. We are inundated with images, political nonsense, and targeted advertising.

Picking up a book is one small way to choose what we allow into our minds and shut out everything else.

Books can teach, inform, and challenge us. They help us encounter other lives and hear voices different from our own. That is important, but it is not their only purpose.

Long before social media, television, and movies, people told stories for entertainment. Books still give us that gift: pages bound together, the satisfying weight of them in our hands, and an invitation to disappear for a while. Every time we open one, we spend less time staring at a screen and enter a world beyond our own—without the screen hangover.

This summer, I gave myself the same permission my librarian had given me so many years ago: to read what I wanted.

I read for pleasure.

Without an assignment.

Without expecting to learn anything.

Without needing to write about it or discuss it afterward.

I read simply to step out of my life for a moment and drop into someone else's world.

My only requirement when choosing each one was simple: What do I feel like reading right now?

I began with a memoir about Kauai because I had just visited. Several were mysteries, my favorite way to escape. One took me to 1950s Houston and another to nineteenth-century England. One dropped me into a charming love story; another had me entangled in a twisted, dark marriage. I chose one because its title intrigued me and another because my best friend recommended it.

There was no pattern and no list to complete. I read whatever drew me in at that particular moment.

The freedom to read for pure pleasure is part of what makes summer reading feel so luxurious. Long afternoons stretch toward twilight. Time feels infinite. You begin a book in the hammock after lunch and look up hours later, surprised to find the day nearly gone.

But do not mistake this kind of reading for wasted time. Pleasure does not make reading less valuable. Often, reading what we enjoy makes us want to read more—and the more we read, the more instinctively we understand language, perspective, voice, and ultimately one another.

As summer gives way to autumn and we return to routines filled with work, school, and everything that needs to be done, I want to hold on to the pleasure of reading simply because I enjoy it.

For parents and teachers, encouraging children to read what they want can be just as powerful. The book that turns a child into a reader may not be the one we would choose for them. That does not make it the wrong book. The important thing is that they discover the pleasure of entering another world and begin searching for the next one.

Not every book has to make us smarter or better informed.

Sometimes the best reason to read is the simplest one: because we want to.