Why is reading so awesome?

Estimated time to read: 2 minutes

I started reading at an early age,initially beginning with Grimm's Fairy Tales (ages 5-7) and then moving on to the then-popular Amar Chitra Katha series.

And people ask me why I'm so into mythology. Pfft.

Every weekend, my mum would take me to the library and we would both read. She would dive into the likes of Shakespeare and such (books I could not comprehend at the time) and I would skip on to the children's section to pick up an Enid Blyton or R.L.Stine (a 10-year old's Stephen King :P ) . To me, that was just..bliss..

Paul Theroux said - "'Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us"  

And I believe that is a 100% true. Because, as a 10-year old, I honestly could never even dream of spending my summers on an island in a lighthouse, or digging up ancient runes or fighting in a war with arrows that could shoot flame or ..you get the picture .. :) But, the point is , reading about all these gave me the ability to conjure up mental pictures of such magical things that would not/ could not practically exist.

I love reading, because it transports me to worlds beyond this world. And throughout my life, just from my bedside, I've travelled both in time and space- to Medieval Rome , Hogwarts (Muggles,click here)   the ruin that is Mordor - to name a few and recently , I've shifted my residence to King's Landing in Westeros. :P

To whoop with joy when the protagonist succeeds , to curse under your breath when the antagonist gets away with a perfect crime, to shed a tear when a beloved character dies, to ponder with empathy when the scene turns sombre , and to realise that all this is happening inside your mind, to characters you have conjured up just by reading their intricately-woven, precise description by the author, that is the kind of satisfaction only books can give you. :)

P.S : Granted, I've only spoken about fiction here, but then again, that Is my most favorite genre :)