One thing that amuses
me about reading is; it doesn’t matter what kind of a book it is that you’re
reading, by the time you finish reading, you’d have learned a few things, or
more. I’ve come to realise that contrary to popular belief, there really isn’t a
bad book and a good book. Or maybe, if there is such a thing as bad and good
books, all these books have something to teach or show or tell - be they
fiction, factual, or faction. I’m just about to start reading a motivational
book titled ‘You Can If You Think You Can’ by Norman Vincent Pearle. It sure
seems like the right stuff to begin the year with. I intend to kick up the new
year with vigour and spirit that I know will unleash the fullness of my
potential. The instigation of a new season, I believe, should be embraced with
not only hope for the best but a determined and head-on launch of oneself
towards achievement.
But before I can start
reading this book, I need to finish off the one I’m now reading. It’s a Stephen
King called ‘Hearts in Atlantis’. Yes, it’s fiction. There’s this twisted and
uninformed belief amongst many that fiction stories are baseless and not worthy
of reading. You’ll hear someone saying, “My days of reading fiction are over, I
now read ‘serious’ stuff,” or “I don’t read fiction, it’s a waste of time.”
Well, I don’t purport
to know all, nor pretend to be a wise man. But what I learned over the years is
that fiction books or novels aren’t about lies and non-existent characters and
plots. Novel writers go through intensive research and dig out a lot of
information which can be very beneficial to the reader. Through their stories,
they take the reader on an expedition the reader would have never travelled and
expose things previously unknown to the reader. The characters may be fictitious,
perhaps the happenings (storyline) as well. But the backdrops against which the
stories are told are, in many cases, very real and revealing and teaching.
Although the characters are fictitious, they are, in a way, genuine. They have real
behavior and real responses to the environment. In Stephen King’s Hearts in
Atlantis, I’m learning a lot of historical facts, told, of course, through
characters and some events that probably never happened. But the crux of the
matter here is; I’m learning a lot.
King is, without doubt,
one of the world’s greatest writers. I’ve read him since high school but in
this book of his, he’s taken me by full surprise. Somehow he has veered away
from his trademark horror stories and weaved gripping tales that tell stories
of life in the sixties. I enjoy the light hearted approach in storytelling and
the humor laced through his airtight writing technique. His characters jump out
of the page and stay with me right in my room. Even after all these years, King
is still the king.
Whenever I read, I feel
a surge of energy gushing through me; like bright floodlights of wisdom. After reading
I always feel an overwhelming urge to type the keys of my computer and fill
pages with a series of words. It looks like I’m not going to stop reading and writing
any time soon. If anything, I’m going to type even faster and write more than I
did before. I want to write until my computer runs out of pages. I want to
write until the curser can’t blink anymore.
I just don’t want to stop writing.
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