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Read as if Your Life Depends on It

“I really think that the written word is what defines us as superior creatures to all the other creatures on Earth,” said novelist and Civil War historian Shelby Foote in an interview with C-SPAN’s Brian Lamb. Foote went on to opine that man, as the only animal who knows he’s going to die someday, has “an obligation to make the most of whatever time he has. And making the most of it is enormously assisted by reading, by learning about the world.”

We need to maximize our moment on this Earth. Ultimately, that’s all any of us has—a moment. Books can help us make the most of it.

Read Interactively

Reading, on its surface, is a solitary rather than a social event. With all the choices available to us—movies, video games, sporting events, television, the Internet—reading all too often comes in on the list of “things to do when we have time”—which all too often means never. So what can we do to change that?

In recent years, book clubs and reading groups have become popular, primarily among women. Thanks to superstar advocates like Oprah Winfrey, many are even rediscovering the classics. Using her successful TV show and the Internet, Winfrey has found a way to get America reading—at least that part of America that watches Winfrey’s weekday talk show. “The book club is back, and I am on a mission,” says Winfrey through her website. “My mission is to make this the biggest book club in the world and get people reading again. Not just reading, but reading great books.”

Some books take a while to get into.
Others grab you by the heartstrings and whisper,
“You’re not going anywhere, honey.”

—O, The Oprah Magazine, July 2006

Through interactive areas of her website, Winfrey offers an online reading group, where members may ask questions, get answers, and find tips for starting or finding reading groups in their area. I am thankful for people like Oprah Winfrey who go the extra mile to encourage reading. She has set an example that many others, myself included, are following to some degree.

My love of reading is well represented on my website. Others, like radio personality Hugh Hewitt, for example, also offer reading lists. Pat Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers, said in a recent interview, “People want to read, but they’re overwhelmed by all the choices. They’re always excited to have someone steer them.”

So if knowing where to get started is a problem for you, visit one of these sites. Then the only problem you’ll have is which one to read first!

An article about the Internet’s influence on our reading habits caught my eye not long ago. The article focused on the invention by University of Virginia literature professor Jerome McGann and colleagues of a software program that makes reading a truly interactive, as well as a collaborative, event. Ivanhoe, as the program is called, engages students in such activities as rewriting great works of literature, role playing, keeping extensive journals, and reacting to the interpretations of others (“How the Internet Saved Literacy,” Maureen Farrell, Forbes magazine, December 1, 2006).

Finding ways to make reading a social event may be more challenging than just turning on the TV, but with a little imagination and drive, anyone can do it. Start your own reading group—in your home, your neighborhood, your church, your workplace, your school—wherever you regularly meet with other people. Do you know anyone who wouldn’t benefit from reading? I don’t.

In our home, Ruth and I have made it a practice over the years to make books central in our lives. When the kids were little, we read aloud to them. (They’re all grown up now, but with our houseful, that was a lot of years of reading aloud.) As they got older, and even now, books are the gifts they receive. When I’ve gone on to that great library in the sky, if there’s only one thing my kids will remember about their dear old dad, it’s that he loved books.

What will your family and friends remember about how you spent your time? Are you investing it, or wondering where it went?

Lincoln never read any other way but aloud.

—William Herndon, Abraham Lincoln’s law partner

Read Reflectively

You’ll get far more out of what you read if you think of it as having a conversation with the author. Why not keep a reader’s notebook? Ask questions, and then write down whatever answers come to you. Make your questions open-ended and explorative: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?

What you “hear” in response may not be what the author would actually say, but it may likely be how the mystery of communication really works. What I write on this page may connect with your brain in such a way that new ideas are triggered. Words have tremendous candlepower to light our passions and blaze new trails. It’s almost magical.

Give it a try. Commit to yourself that for the next year you’ll keep a reader’s notebook and use it whenever you’re reading one of those especially provocative books.

Or write a book review on Amazon.com after you finish your next book. You may be surprised at how this little exercise helps clarify your thinking about what you just read.

I do not read a book:
I hold a conversation with the author.

—Elbert Hubbard, nineteenth-century author and editor

Read with a Servant’s Heart

In his book, Why Read? author Mark Edmundson asserts that the common practice in today’s universities of training literature students to critically analyze the works they study often leads to an attitude of superiority over the work itself. This mind-set, as Edmundson sees it, is a byproduct of living in the age of mass consumerism.

That idea intrigues me as one that needs to be confronted and nipped in the bud—eliminated immediately from the program directory. I believe a critical attitude in any walk of life all too often fosters feelings of superiority. Yes, we need to be discerning and understand the works we read, but our attitude should be one of learning from one another, not comparing ourselves to one another.

Rick Warren has said about comparing: “You’ll either think yourself worse than someone else, or better than someone else. Neither of these is good. Stop comparing.”

Don’t let reading make you arrogant. It can happen—believe me. Maybe you’ve even met a person or two like this, someone who thinks that being an English literature major or particularly well read puts them above the crowd. Take my advice: even if it’s true, don’t go there.

I have been learning how to read for the past fifty years, but have not yet succeeded.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, eighteenth-century writer and German scientist

Prideful thinking is not only false, but it can be downright deadly. Author Greg Morris tells the story of an Avianca Airlines jet that crashed in Spain in 1984. “Investigators studying the accident made an eerie discovery,” Morris wrote. “The ‘black box’ cockpit recorders revealed that several minutes before impact, a shrill, computer-synthesized voice from the plane’s automatic warning system told the crew repeatedly in English, ‘Pull up! Pull up!’

“The pilot, evidently thinking the system was malfunctioning, snapped, ‘Shut up!’ and switched the system off. Minutes later the plane plowed into the side of a mountain. Everyone on board died.”

Just as with instruments, there are plenty of books out there that can mislead us or give us false indications, but those written by men and women of passion and insight overshadow them. Books issue warnings, and books point us toward truth. They help us to see into the deep—beyond this mere physical world. To ignore their warnings is just as dangerous as to think we already know them.

I urge you to read, knowing the words you absorb will come out in your life in ways that inspire, uplift, and encourage someone else. Life is meant to be passed on. Read with a servant’s heart.

If thou would profit by thy reading, read humbly, simply, honestly, and not desiring to win a reputation for learning.

—Thomas à Kempis, fifteenth-century author of The Imitation of Christ

Endless Possibilities

Even if reading doesn’t top your personal skill set, there are more options today for getting information from books than ever before in history. Audiobooks and portable listening devices make it possible for almost anyone to read, and their increasing popularity is encouraging.

Jonathan Lowe wrote in Christianity Today (June 1, 2006), “Zondervan, the Christian division of HarperCollins, reports a 24-percent increase in audiobook sales in the past two years . . . Time Warner AudioBooks (TWA) is seeking a 10-percent audiobook share of its million-plus hardcover sales . . .

“Anthony Goff, TWA’s associate publisher, tells CT, ‘For a relatively new medium, these are explosive numbers, and now we are attracting younger listeners with new technology . . .’”

Touted as “a new way to borrow audiobooks from the library” involving “no CDs, no car trips, no fines, and no risk of being shushed,” a recent Associated Press article by Michael Hill talked about “borrowing” audiobooks from library websites and downloading them to your favorite listening device.

You can buy or borrow books on CD and listen to them during your daily commute to work, or you can download a book directly into your portable listening device. It simply could not be easier to get information from books than it is today.

This is my point: if you’ve got either two eyes or two ears or two hands that work and you live in America, there is basically no excuse not to benefit from books. Look for ways to maximize your moment on Earth in the pages of a few great books.