北辰

Reading is a pleasure of the mind， which means that it is a little like a sport： your eagerness and knowledge and quickness make you a good reader. Reading is fun， not because the writer is telling you something， but because it makes your mind work. Your own imagination works along with the authors or even goes beyond his. Your experience， compared with his， brings you to the same or different conclusions①， and your ideas develop， as you understand his.

Every book stands by itself， like a one-family house， but books in a library are like houses in a city. Although they are separate， together they all add up to something; they are connected with each other and with other cities. The same ideas， or related ones， turn up in different places. Books influence each other; they link the past， the present and the future and have their own generations②， like families. Wherever you start reading you connect yourself with one of the families of ideas， and， in the long run， you not only find out about the world and the people in it; you find out about yourself， too.

Reading can only be fun if you expect it to be. If you concentrate on books somebody tells you “ought” to read， you probably wont have fun. But if you put down a book you dont like and try another till you find one that means something to you， and then relax with it， you will almost certainly have a good time and if you become， as a result of reading， better， wiser， kinder， or more gentle， you wont have suffered during the process.

讀書是一種精神享受，這意思是說讀書好像一種運(yùn)動(dòng)。你的渴望，你所掌握的知識(shí)以及你的機(jī)敏程度，這些都將使你成為一名善于讀書的人。讀書很有樂趣，這不僅僅是因?yàn)樽髡呦蚰阒v述了什么，也因?yàn)樽x書能使你開動(dòng)腦筋思考。你自己的想象同作者的想象不謀而合，甚至超越作者的想象。你的經(jīng)歷同作者的經(jīng)歷相比較，會(huì)使你得出與作者相同或相異的結(jié)論。當(dāng)你領(lǐng)會(huì)了作者的觀點(diǎn)以后，你自己的觀點(diǎn)便形成了。

每一本書如同一戶人家的房子，孑然而立;而圖書館里的書就像城市中的建筑物一樣，鱗次櫛比。盡管每本書彼此互不相連，但是要把它們放在一起，意義就不同了。書籍相互間都是有聯(lián)系的。彼城的書同此城的書也是有聯(lián)系的，相同或相近的觀點(diǎn)在不同的作品中表現(xiàn)出來。書籍之間互相影響，它們聯(lián)系著過去、現(xiàn)在和未來，像家族一樣，代代相傳。無論你從哪里開始讀起，你都會(huì)把自己同其中一族的觀點(diǎn)聯(lián)系起來，最后你不僅洞察了那個(gè)世界和生活在其中的人們，你也認(rèn)識(shí)了自己。

只有把讀書當(dāng)成樂趣，它才會(huì)成為樂趣。如果你只集中精力閱讀別人要求你讀的那些書，那么你可能永遠(yuǎn)也不會(huì)以讀書為樂。相反，如果你把自己不喜歡的書擱在一旁，試著去讀另一本書，直到找到一本對(duì)你有意義的書，然后輕松愉悅地讀起來，那么你一定會(huì)感到很愜意。假如因?yàn)椴┯[群書，你變得更加高尚、更加聰慧、更加善良、更加文雅，那么，你就不會(huì)覺得讀書是件苦差事了。