Why do I read?

This question was posed the other day on Book Blogs, and I wanted to expand upon the most common, and most true answer: To escape.

There are lots of ways to escape, including TV and movies, but more often than not, I choose books. The reason is, that when I watch a TV show, though it might make me laugh or cry, it is always about someone else. I'm a passive observer, not an active participant.

With books, on the other hand, I can become the characters. I get to know them intimately. This is why I am particularly fond of points of view that deeply penetrate a character's mind. It is, IMO, what books can do that movies cannot.

It is also why, unsophisticated as I know it makes me, I don't often read classics. There are many great stories out there, and I sample enough of them to be tolerably well-read, but I think books have served a different purpose over time, and I often find it difficult to engage these wonderful old stories on their level. I tend to appreciate them rather than truly enjoy them.

So give me science fiction, or romance, or fantasy, or mystery. Genre doesn't matter to me. Just give me a character I can lose myself in.

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