Sarah Cogan
Sharon Kubicek
AP English IV p. 8
2 September 2014
Personal Reading Assignment Reading isn’t always fun. It isn’t always easy, either. But the thoughts and philosophies a book can open to a reader make whatever “risk” there might be well worth it. Reading will always influence a person. It’s always influenced me, showing me new channels of thought and whole worlds spawned from a single mind. Every book makes me think, gives me something to mull over, and that, in my opinion, makes reading more than worthwhile. Pretty much the only reading strategy I have when reading for pleasure is to reread passages in the book that I found interesting in some way. It wasn’t that I didn’t necessarily understand the text, it was more a feeling of stumbling across something that warranted a second read. If the passage made me pause and reflect a little the first time around, I’d go back and try to figure out what had made me do so. I try not to limit myself to any particular genre. I love Neil Gaiman’s fantasy novels because the characters are so otherworldly and his words so appropriate. I love Patrick Rothfuss’s Name of the Wind series because it’s obvious that every detail, every sentence was heavily scrutinized and picked with great care. I love Hunger Games because of its unique dystopian setting and its believable, realistic characters with believable, realistic motivations. There’s always something to take away from a book, whether it be a moral or a turn of phrase that stood out to you. What I love most about reading is you never get the same experience twice. No two books capture a reader the same way, no two have the same way of unfurling themselves and their ideas. Even rereading the same book won’t yield the same journey. It fills me with a kind of giddiness that so many books are available to a person, because it means there’s always a new point of view to see in a different light, always another
