Did you get this month’s issue of Costco Connection in the mail (It really has some great articles)? If you did, check out “Reading for Life” in the For Your Health section. It confirms what I’ve believed for a long time: “Reading regularly can help you live longer and better.”
Yes, reading regularly for 30 minutes a day can add two years to your life span.
And here’s something else the article states that I’ve come to realize as a writer and reader: “24 percent of American adults reported that they haven’t read one book (or even “part of a book”) in the previous year.” Yikes, that’s 1 in 4 Americans. Reading regularly, according to the article, “is a learning jackpot, helping you to grow emotionally and intellectually.”
No time to read? Ah, the authors of this article, Nancy Monson and Stephanie Sheaffer, have some suggestions for you. My favorite, “Sleep on it,” in which the authors suggest: 1. Keep a book on your nightstand; and 2. Don’t bring your phone into your bedroom at night.
If you’re thinking about ramping up your reading, let me add a suggestion of my own:
My “Enter the Between” book series fulfills an additional need for readers, as pointed out in an article titled What If You Saw Things Differently? in the September 2018 issue of Oprah Magazine–“Opening up to fresh thinking, different perspectives, and opposing points of view.”
And while I’m at it, let me make another suggestion for those of you who love books and/or want to write them: Francine Prose’s book, “Reading Like a Writer.”
USA Today describes it as “A love letter about the pleasures of reading and how much writers can learn from the careful reading of great writers as diverse as Virginia Woolf and Flannery O’Connor.”
The Chicago Tribune calls it “a tutorial in how to read closely.”
Enjoy!
