Did you like to read as a child? Remember that feeling of getting lost in a story? That thrill of discovering a whole new realm, you didn’t know existed?

Unwrapping a Nancy Drew mystery at our extended family gathering on Christmas Eve ensured that I’d sit at the feet of the gift giver the rest of the evening. But somehow as I became a young adult, I traded stories with intrigue, adventure, and suspense for one banal romance novel after another. At least until I took Aleksandr Soltzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago on a Caribbean cruise. Why I bought that book, I have no idea other than I thought it might be a good conversation starter. And, it was. Injustice gets people talking. And, I liked that it made people think I was smart, so much so that although it was a struggle, I actually read the book. Rediscovering the value of picking up a good book on an unfamiliar topic changed me in several significant ways–and it can do the same for you.

Reading Develops Our Minds

After that book, I wanted more than romance. Sometimes a good one featured interesting historical details, but most authors simply escalated their sexcapades turning them into porn, which really messes with the mind. Still, one heart-wrenching story about Stalin’s Russia was enough. So my reading improvement plan started with a fiction classic, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

Stories like that transported me into another world, one where family offers a tremendous support system and works together to overcome life’s struggles. From there, I chose a nonfiction contemporary classic, Knowing God by J. I. Packer, voted by Christianity Today as one of the top fifty books to shape evangelicals. With sound theology, it put the cookie jar where ordinary people like me could reach in and grasp deep truths about loving the sovereign Lord and obeying His Word.

While reading the allegory, Hinds Feet in High Places by Hannah Hunnard, I climbed mountains with Much-Afraid and sought God’s guidance to overcome obstacles so we could reach the summit.

As other classics came to mind, I tackled them. You know, the ones we should have read in high school, but for some reason didn’t. I’ll never understand why we didn’t dive into Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. That book changed a nation as it laid the groundwork for the Civil War. Jane Eyre convinced me to write The Windblown Girl (by signing up for my newsletter below, you’ll find out how). The Scarlet Pimpernel gave me back the sheer delight of solving a mystery.

Reading Improves Our Relationships

While struggling with marital issues, because I couldn’t change my husband, I decided to work on myself. Recommended by my counselor, the best-selling book Passages by Gail Sheehy (still in print after more than 30 years) convinced me, I wasn’t alone. Many others shared my angst and found creative ways to deal with life’s crises.

When my anger took a toll, I read Make Anger Your Ally by Neil Clark Warren. Then came Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend and numerous others. Discovering beneficial ways to interact made me want to read books about other areas of personal growth. The library became my friend, and if they didn’t have what I wanted, most of the time they ordered it for me.

Since I’ve been writing a memoir, I’ve read several bestsellers like Educated by Tara Westover, MAID by Stephanie Land, and Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance. Westover revealed the shaping of a mind and the importance of education to rise above the dysfuction our parents bestow. Land reminded me of the challenges of being a single mom and fighting to care for your child while working to keep a roof over your head and food on the table. She had it far worse than I ever did.

In an NPR interview about his book, J. D. Vance read a couple of paragraphs from Hillbilly Elegy that explain the challenges families like his face in America:

I may be white, but I do not identify with the WASPs of the Northeast. Instead, I identify with the millions of working-class white Americans of Scots-Irish descent who have no college degree. To these folks, poverty’s the family tradition. Their ancestors were day laborers in the southern slave economy, sharecroppers after that, coal miners after that, and machinists and mill workers during more recent times. Americans call them hillbillies, rednecks or white trash. I call them neighbors, friends and family.

The dynamics at work through such stories, not only help us better understand the reality of other people’s lives, but also of our own selves. 

Reading Reveals Reality

Fiction likeThe Four Winds by Kristin Hannah takes readers into the ferocious weather of the 1930s Dust Bowl and the unimaginable poverty of those who migrated from Oklahoma and Texas to California. The despair of families trying to survive ran so deep, it made communism seem a viable option. At first read, I was as offended as some of the reviewers, but considering the plight of these destitute people working as virtual slaves indebted to the company store helped me understand how such a horrid ideology can appear to offer hope. 

Reality is not the tiny box of each individual’s own existence. It encompasses far more than the eye can see. Reading broadens our perspectives in ways that grant us understanding and compassion. Economic deprivation, lack of healthcare, and/or opportunities lead in a multitude of directions–death for some, survival against all odds for others. Events from history, the experiences of differing nationalities, even lives from other parts of our own country offer wisdom a world away from our own.

Whether timeless classics, self-help books, or stories of old; reading changes us for the better. It expands our thinking, improves our interaction with others and shows us the real world.

The Bible does all that and more. If that is the only book we ever read, it will improve our lives beyond measure. More on that next time.