What would we lose in a world without books?
“When young people are introduced to books themselves, they become very excited and enthusiastic.” (Azar Nafisi, Iranian bestselling author)
As Nafisi points out, reading not only helps us think, but also helps us to imagine our place in the world, and sympathise with others. It’s an antidote to intolerance that she believes is the solution to the malaise afflicting Americans, especially the younger generations. Reading provides a passport to the Republic of Imagination, a “country without borders accessible to anyone who opens a book”.
A former lecturer at the Tehran University, Azar Nafisi’s bestselling novel Reading Lolita in Tehran has been translated into more than 30 languages. She has since written, “The Republic of the Imagination”. She encourages parents to think about the benefits of books and the impact of the imagination on our wellbeing and on our emotional intelligence: “If we are preparing our children to face and confront life then we have to teach them to see and confront and imagine life at its best and its worst. That is one of the things that imagination does for us.” She also believes that the iPhone and iPad generation does not provide sufficient meaning or passion in young people’s lives. “When young people are introduced to books themselves, they become very excited and enthusiastic.” Books, she believes, satisfies their hunger for passion and for meaning in a way that technological gadgets can never do. (See, “Passport to a better world”, Andrew Purcell, The Age, 27/6/15.)
So perhaps even from a selfish perspective, as parents wishing to protect the heart and soul of the family, a little reading goes a long way.
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