Televisions emit heat, but TV will never warm you like the words in a good book.
When you crack open a book, you dream with eyes wide open. Between the pages, you are free to imagine what the author omits. Your creativity is exercised. Your mind is mesmerized. Each chapter is a personal accomplishment, every story a toasty adventure.
And this time of year—as cold wind whistles past the windowsills—we humans hunger for indoor activities that will pass the time from chilly winter nights to hot summer days.
A novel is the perfect companion to snuggle up with fireside or wrapped in a favorite blanket on the couch. The words are a distraction from the deluge of junkformation on social media. Well-plotted classics offer respite from cliché sitcom humor and piecemeal network dramas.
Reading involves [and educates] the whole family. The dinner table becomes a venue for discussions of exotic worlds thoroughly explored. Children burst with information, sharing what they have learned with family and friends.
Everyone who encounters a reader is treated to the entertaining recitations of fiction, or the deep debate of non-fiction. From horror to how-to, books are more than a pastime. They are timeless. Books record history and fuel the future.
Best of all, a collection of knowledge and entertainment vast enough to quench the thirst of even the most curious reader is available free of charge.
Visit your public library and checkout a stack of books. When you get home, prepare some hot chocolate and sip it with Hemingway, London, King, or Twain. When you finish one adventure, start the next one.
Before long, it will be summer. Time to hang the hammock and get another stack of books.