Since her beginnings in a small town, Oprah has gone on to become one of the wealthiest women in the world, bringing her love of books with her. Her book club has inspired millions of people around the world to read everything from new fiction to literary classics.
Reading nourishes your mind, gives you both information and knowledge, and also encourages you to think and imagine.
I cited this from Manali Oak :
Children who grow up reading good books, definitely stand out. The way they think and act is way different from those who have never been exposed to reading. Reading not only adds to their general knowledge but also shapes their personalities. If, during years of a child's life, books become his companions, the child develops the hobby of reading and grows up to be more versatile than he would have without reading.
Children who are introduced to reading at an early age are seen to have a better understanding of phonics. They acquire language skills with ease, have a richer vocabulary and possess greater cognitive abilities. Reading helps develop creative and critical thinking skills. It develops vocabulary, sharpens language skills and leads to greater cognitive development. It leads to a better understanding of self.The mind-expanding benefits are huge - and bear in mind that, while there’s a lot of great online reading, anything written by great thinkers in the past is often only available in books.
Vocabulary.
Reading gives you richer vocabulary. If you can express yourself eloquently, the person hearing you has already decided you are intelligent. In most situations in life, intelligence will get you where you want to go. Sounding intelligent helps you on your path to that goal.
Imagination.
You can imagine through watching tellies and playing computer games, you say ? TV and computer games have their place, but they are more like amusement. Amusement comes from two words "a" [non] and "muse" [think]. Amusement is non-thinking activities.
Think of the difference between watching television and reading a book. Watching television is, essentially, a passive experience. You sit, you look, and you listen. Such concentration as you have is driven by outside stimulation. In fact, when you are caught up in a TV show (or even a commercial, for that matter), it is a lot more like being hypnotized than being aware and present with your thoughts.Reading a book, on the other hand, requires active concentration. As you read, you must put in a great deal of effort to look at the words, figure out what they mean, and build up images, thoughts and opinions within your mind. Moreover, if you are reading and you stop concentrating, even for a second, everything stops. Nothing happens until you start concentrating again.For this reason, reading regularly forces you to increase your powers of concentration, a skill whose value would be difficult to overpraise.
Information.
I don't think I need to write long explanation for this. Everyone knows books contain so much information. Knowledge is power! Don’t dismiss fiction as a source of learning, either; you can earn lots of small things along the way: perhaps new words in a literary or classic novel, new facts in a historical novel, cultures, or new scientific information in a sci-fi novel. (My first introduction to English culture and history like in Old English, Medieval, Elizabethan, Victorian, and Renaissance age was through fiction books)
Well, that's all for now. If you really want to train your brain using books, I suggest you to read books that are just a bit harder than you can manage comfortably. Over time, as your mind develops, your ability to read and to think will grow.
-Am I encountering words I don't understand?
-Am I forced to stop once in a while to think carefully about what I am reading?
-Are there times when I must reread passages in order to understand them more clearly?
If the answers to these questions are no, you are not challenging yourself enough.
“To read is to fly: it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the fruits of many inquiries.”
- A C Grayling, Financial Times (in a review of A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel)
