When someone says that their hobby is reading, what do we ask? "fiction or non-fiction?..." "Who's your favorite author?" etc. etc. Do we ever think of what use the reading is put to? Most of us read just for pleasure... we read to get into a world of imagination and to forget our real world. In some cases, we read to see how good the author has written the plot or to observe the writing style or the language of the book. Some people read books related to management or communication skills to help them in their profession and others read biographies and autobiographies to gain inspiration and motivation from lives of great personalities.
A good book can captivate us to such an extent that we stick to turning the pages all through the night completely forgetful of the world around us! Many at times, our mood swings depend on what kind of a chapter or passage that we are reading in our current book. A book full of jokes can keep us in good humour; at the same time, if the protagonist is going through a very difficult phase in life, we also seem to be very sad or temperamental. Such is the influence of books on us!
If you are an avid reader, you will completely agree with me! (won't you?)
Recently, I was enlightened a very different kind of a perspective for the hobby: reading. Why do we restrict ourselves to reading novels or books related to our profession? Why not take up books that can improve our knowledge in topics like Travel, Astronomy, Geography, Archaeology, Philosophy etc.? There may be a subject/topic that interests us a lot, say psychology. Then we can get books on child psychology or criminal psychology and read them. They not only help in passing our time but also enrich our learning.
Ever since, I started looking at reading in this angle, I have started browsing for books related to Travel, tourist places in the world, Bhagavad Gita etc. I get hooked onto the 
book because these topics interest me and at the end of the book, I am left more knowledge. Instead of discussing the plots of the novels that I would read, I now discuss about religion, China's forbidden palace, Iceland's volcano or Mahabharata.
Even though we may read one book a day, there will be still thousands of books still waiting for us to be read and absorbed. I can't wait to read more! :)
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