I love books – they can take you places you couldn’t otherwise go. Some show you what it was like to live during the renaissance, some show you what it might be like to live in present-day Russia and many other places. Some help you imagine what it might be like to be in space or be a water-breathing life-form or something even more fantastical. Many provide information and history about the real world, and many provide a gateway into the realm of the imagination.
Imagination and books go hand in hand and something that can’t completely be replicated by movies. Imagination is not limited by special effects technology or budgets, and it’s not limited by what someone else has pictured. If I want to imagine a character one way, it’s more difficult after seeing a movie image that is different.
Empathy can also come from reading. To see the words that express the feelings experienced by others in situations both similar and vastly different from mine can open ways of understanding other people. Life is so full of so much, and books are small but potent vessels to contain fragments of it.
