By Bennett Cerf

　　All the wisdoms of the ages, all the stories that have delighted mankind for centuries, are easily and cheaply available to all of us within the covers of books----but we must know how to avail ourselves of this treasure and how to get the most from it. The most unfortunate people in the world are those who have never discovered how satisfying it is to read good books.

　　有史以来的人类智慧，经世不衰的益趣故事，我们都可轻易地从书中获得，而且花钱不多。但读者要知道如何开发这一宝藏，从而得到最大收益。世间最为不幸的，就是那些从未体验过读书乐趣的人。

　　I am most interested in people, in meet them and finding out about them. Some of the most remarkable people I've met existed only in a writer's imagination, then on the pages of his book, and then, again, in my imagination. I've found in books new friends, new societies, new words.

　　书中人物最令我倾心，我乐于同他们相会、相识。其中一些超凡脱俗之辈，最初只浮现于作者的奇思妙想中，接着跃然纸上，后来又复活在我的想象空间。从书里，我结识了新朋友，了解到新社会，也欣赏到新的词句。

　　If I am interested in people, others are interested not so much in “who” as in “how”. “Who” in the books includes everybody from science fiction superman two hundred centuries in the future all the way back to the first figures in history. “How” covers everything from the ingenious explanations of Sherlock Holmes to the discoveries of science and ways of teaching manner to children.

　　如果说我对书中人物感兴趣，那其他人可能更关注“谁”“怎么样”了——关注那些上至社会之初的杰出人士、下至两万年后的科幻超人，关注神探福尔摩斯如何机智地推理案情、科学领域中如何去发现以及如何教育孩子。

　　Reading is a pleasure of the mind, which means that it is a little like a sport: your eagerness and knowledge and quickness make you a good reader. Reading is fun, not because the writer is telling you something, but because it makes your mind work. Your own imagination works along with the author’s or even goes beyond his. Your experience, compared with his, brings you to the same or different conclusions, and your ideas develop, as you understand his.

　　阅读好比一种精神盛宴，也有点类似于体育运动：如果你求知若渴、功底较深且领悟力强，那么读书效率就高。读书之所以有趣，并非因为作者告诉你了什么，而是因为阅读能使你的思想活跃。你的想象与作者的想象一道驰骋，甚至较作者更胜一筹；你的阅历同作者的阅历两相对照，或不谋而合或各有千秋。而随着对作者思想的深入了解，你的思想也不断丰满。

　　Every book stands by itself, like a one-family house, but books in a library are like houses in a city. Although they are separate, together they all add up to something; they are connected with each other and with other cities. The same ideas, or related ones, turn up in different places; the human problems that repeat themselves in life repeat themselves in literature, but with different solutions according to different writings at different times. Books influence each other; they link the past, the present and the future and have their own generations, like families. Wherever you start reading you connect yourself with one of the families of the ideas, and, in the long run, you not only find out about the world and the people in it; you find out about yourself, too.

　　每本书都自成一体，恰如一户人家的房屋；而图书馆的万卷藏书则像城市里栉比林立的楼房。它们虽各自独立，但结合在一起又衍生出新的东西；同时书与书彼此呼应，城与城相互牵连。相关或相同的观点融进不同的作品，一再困扰人类生活的难题也在文学里反复出现，只是在不同时代的不同作品中提供了不同的解决对策。书与书相互影响，它们联系过去，包融现在，又衔接未来，而且像家族一样，有自己的继承者。任选一本书来欣赏，你便和某家族的思想有了沟通。最终，你不仅熟如了书中人物，饱览了书中世界，也重新发现了自我。

　　Reading can only be fun if you expect it to be. If you concentrate on books somebody tells you you “ought” to read, you probably won’t have fun. But if you put down the book you don’t like and try another till you find one that means something to you, and then relax with it, you will almost certainly have a good time ---- and if you become, as a result of reading, better, wiser, kinder, or more gentle, you won’t have suffered during the process.

　　只有期望从阅读中获得乐趣，你才能够如愿以偿。若是悉心攻读别人“要求”你看的书，或许就索然无味；但如果自己逐个挑选，终于寻到称心如意的佳作，那就尽情享用吧，愉悦之情定会油然而来。通过博览群书，你变得愈加高尚、聪慧、友善、温和，就再也不会因读书而备受煎熬了。