Sarvagna a great Kannada poet rightly says we have to learn something from a learned , something we have to see & learn from those who are doing & something we have to do ourselves & learn.There's no end to learning limit is sky. One of the means to be learned is undoubtedly reading. All one cannot know. Many things are to be known from others.Books are the media through which what one knows can be conveyed to others & what others know can be known too.There is a saying " Always two heads are better than one " Books are several heads.They are one of the best tools for training & upbringing. A good book always has a salutary effect on the mind of a reader.By reading it one can become a better person than they are."Books of permanent value,like good literature, inform one, enlighten one & lead one to the correct path.Books are pools of experiences & opinions. Books are the best friends.They give company to a lonely person. A good book impresses & influences a man. One habit of ultra-successful people like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates,Mark Cuban, Elan Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, ....have in common is they read a lot.Reading habit doesn't mean one must be a bookworm. It's it that makes one always pleasant. It's a developed habit only.When a person is reading the brain experiences the same serenity caused by meditation.The gauge for the progress & civilization of any nation is the quality & the number of books & the number of persons habituated of reading them.Charles W. Elio says
"Books are the quietest & most constant of friends;they are the most accessible& wisest counselors,and the most patient of teachers."
Delbert L. Stapley rightly says " Good habits develop in the workshops of our daily lives.It isn't in the great moments of test & trial that character is built. That's only when it's displayed. The habits that direct our lives & form our character are fashioned in the often uneventful, commonplace routine of life. "Good habits develop good character"
Reading is a starting step of many things which build a more solid stairs for one to climb up achieving something big out there. What rewards one outstanding performance in exams is reading burning midnight oil.
Here are some of the advantages of reading books .
1)Reading Takes Your Mind Off Your Troubles 2) Reading Feeds The Craving Mind 3) Reading Improves Your Quality Of Conversations 4) Reading Engages Your Imagination 5) Helps You To Tap Into The Mind Of The Creative Thinkers 6) Reading brings you joy 7) Reading Stimulates Your Creativity 8) Reading A Book Can Improve Your Health 9) Reading Can Help You Solve Your Problems 10) Reading Helps You To Grow 11) The More You Read The More You Know.
There are ways of reading. Reading has an impact only if done properly with interest & one is able to grasp something. One must plan their life & curriculum & have enough leisure & calm in this respect invariably. How & what one reads is also always important.Reading is not mere chewing it's digesting too.
Libraries are where there are piles of books. It's one where one would be not merely busy choosing books . It's Reading ,Reading, Reading. Americans go to school,public & academic libraries more than three times more often than they go to the movies.Recently, we were to Alameda County Library Central Library in USA.If taxes are recovered promptly & utilized properly,how the country would develop that USA shows.Th books & cost of them,each one is allowed to take from the it made me wonder. It was a fully computerized modern library.Like of which I hadn't seen before at all.It's maintenance was excellent.It was in a spacious building surrounded by trees & lawns.It's functioning was superb. There was pin drop silence all around . All were disciplined.
My wife as usual borrowed a number of books from Alameda County Library Central Library. One of them was a book written by Anne Mustoe namely."Two wheels in the dust from Kathmandu to Kandy" This is the finest travel writing.It's impossible to meet all who are in world, it's while reading only we come across many who couldn't be met. That's how I could come to know Anne Mustoe.
Europeans are adventurists. It was Vasco da Gama who discovered India , Christopher Columbus discovered America. Anne Mustoe, a former headmistress of Saint Felix School,South wold , Britain who lived between May 24, 1933 and November 10, 2009 was a touring cyclist, author of travel books. She retired at the age of 54 yrs from school & traveled around the globe on bicycle.She not only traveled through Nepal,India & Sri Lanka by bicycle, but also studied the places, people,their culture & wrote a book.How much patience,stamina she might have had to undertake such long, strenuous journeys under various adversities.She rode her bike through the town streets jammed with cars,buses,scooters,rickshaws ,animals, fortune tellers, shoe repairers , barbers, beggars, & people sleeping or cooking their breakfasts.
Anne Mustoe's phenomenal journey is full of rich experiences & enlightening incidents. Beginning in Kathmandu in Nepal and ending in the tranquil town of Kandy in Sri Lanka, her journey follows in the path of The Ramayana's characters, Rama, Sita and Hanuman followed. The book is packed with anecdotes and beautifully written episodes of her marvelous adventures. It is a delight for aspirant and seasoned travelers alike and, with the Indian subcontinent as the focus of the book, the spiritual aspects of her travels are explored in detail as is the breath taking scenery. Featuring a map of her route and her own photographs, this is a story with humor, keen observation one would relish. It tries to project a real picture of India, Nepal & Sri Lanka in the eyes of a foreigner. If a book is good , it is often recommended for reading to others.
Writing a book is not an easy task at all. How much one has to toil. This fact book of Anne Mustoe throws undoubtedly much light. Though I belong to India ,many matters which I didn't know I came to know through her book. It is a book which contains 282 pages.