Title: Why do we read?
Headings: Why do we read?
Why do we read?
To read is to build your own imagination and strengthen resistance to prevailing commercial forces

Content: We read to feel less lonely, to feel more connected to the greater reality of what has happened or is happening or may happen outside of our direct experience. We read to assure ourselves that the search for meaning is relentless and that many creative minds have made all sorts of wild and wonderful sense of it all, or not – but even the chaotic, nihilistic texts are bound in covers and are structured into comprehendible stories. We read to discover the consequences of actions without bearing any of the responsibility. We read with Schadenfreude, with pity, empathically; we look for validation, catharsis and humour and find common sense, confusion, absurdity and righteousness. We read because we know instinctively that nature, books, music and love help us live life more intensely and in, dare I say it, truth. We read because we love the language, the images it evokes, the landscapes it conjures, the mire of human desire, anguish and beauty. We read to send us to sleep dreaming of different sunsets and boulevards, oceans and bogs. We read to know that there is someone tracing a life very like our own, or not at all alike but recognisable all the same, and making of it a moment worth sharing. In Tim Winton’s book Breath the protagonist says: “