After grabbing a book, you find a place to sit and open up the cover to find a whole new world enveloped in the pages, just waiting to be discovered. You start reading to solve a mystery, to place yourself where superpowers run rampant or to run away to a much simpler world to escape the chaos of the real one. As you get closer to the climax of the story, your heart beats faster and faster. Reaching that one line that strikes the exact chord, you calm down as quickly as you got riled up. You eventually finish the book, and, when you flip over that last page, you die a little inside because the imperfect-but-perfect world and the characters you invested your time into, disappears with one quick hand movement.
The same sensations could be applied to movies as well, but for me, reading opens up a whole new dimension you can't gain from watching a story on screen. I don't hate movies or television shows; in fact, I rather enjoy them. However, when reading, you get to create the world based on the words in your own way--exactly how you want it.
There are probably some of you who don't share the same love for books that I do and probably don't understand the thrills and joys that accompany a good book. However, I, as well as many others, enjoy books so much because reading words create a movie in our own minds. We are not simply reading words on a page, but we allow the words to bring the characters and that world alive, as the author intended.
For example, the wizarding world of Harry Potter, which some reduce to a series of books, has become much more, a fully functioning and very real universe. Even people who don't read often are familiar with the story. Although Harry Potter series also has its fair share of movies, the community has a foundation upon the words J.K. Rowling wrote a few years back. This makes that world seem much more real, which created a loyalty to that legacy.
In all, books are a safe place to turn to. As books are also a reflection of culture, they remind us of the past in ways historical books cannot. Books are able to connect us to a completely separate universe, that still resembles our own. They make me feel a part of that story, in a way movies and television can't offer, as films only provide a window to observe through. Either way, if some of you are still not convinced, try to pick up book and open it up. Try to imagine the world you are entering. Imagine the characters and their surroundings. Invest time and grow as they grow. It's not difficult or boring, you just have to go with the flow of the story and let it overtake you. I mean if you're in school, you have to read anyways, so why not enjoy it?
