I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.
Franz Kafka - Letters to Friends, Family and Editors
4 Points
I’m not sure it is a necessity to read books ‘that affect us like a disaster’, but that’s just me.
Personally, although I have my preferences for the type of book I think I enjoy most, I have often read books of other genres and found enjoyment in reading them. (Not always, it is true.) I think it is all about new experiences, and compatibility of emotions, as to whether you enjoy reading something. We are all like islands, independent and surrounded by a huge moat, what gives us the greatest pleasure is the ‘joining’ with others, be it sex, or finding a commonality and similarity through other senses - including the cerebral one of imagination, which expands upon potential experiences almost infinitely.
3 Points