希望长着翅膀30 Read for Life

Read for life

　　 By David Marcolo

　　Read for life, all your life. Nothing ever invented provides suchsubstance, such infinite reward for time spent, as a good book. Readto your heart’s content. Let one book lead to another. They nearlyalways do.
Take up a great author and read everything he or she has written.
Read about places where you have never been. Read books that changedhistory: Tom Paine’s Commom Sense, the autobiography¹ of FrederickDouglass, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.
Read these books you know you are supposed to have read andimagine as dreary². A classic may be defined as a book that stayslong in print, and a book stays long in print only because it isexceptional. Why exclude the exceptional from your experience? Andwhen you read a book you love—the book you feel has enlarged theexperience of being alive, a book that “lights the fire”—then spreadthe world.
To carry a book with you wherever you go is old advice and goodadvice. John Adams urged his son John Quincy to carry a volume ofportry. “You will never be alone,” he said, “with a poet in yourpocket.”　　　　

1 autobiography   

n.自传

参考例句：

• He published his autobiography last autumn.他去年秋天出版了自己的自传。
• His life story is recounted in two fascinating volumes of autobiography.这两卷引人入胜的自传小说详述了他的生平。

2 dreary   

adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的

参考例句：

• They live such dreary lives.他们的生活如此乏味。
• She was tired of hearing the same dreary tale of drunkenness and violence.她听够了那些关于酗酒和暴力的乏味故事。