The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova-Book Review

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I want to travel the world and witness foreign cultures. I have been making plans ever since I passed high school and I shall be visiting my marked places to experience their exquisiteness one day. However, I always try to satisfy my thirst whenever I come across a historical book as my main goal is to learn as much as possible whilst travelling. I was intrigued when I heard about Elizabeth Kostova’s latest masterpiece as she defines history in a delightful way. Kostova captivates the readers with her simple yet unique writing style and takes us across the globe through magic.

The Shadow Land is a mesmerising tale of love, injustices and loss. The main lead is a 26-year-old English teacher called Alexandra Boyd; she visits Bulgaria to teach but stumbles upon an extraordinary quest. The story opens in 2008 when Boyd arrives in Sofia; her cab driver drops her at the wrong hotel, and that results in her pleasant yet brief encounter with an elderly couple and a middle aged man. They accidentally leave one of their bags, and upon opening it, Alexandra discovers a burial urn containing the remains of a man called StoyanLazarov. Hence, Boyd finds herself in a very grave situation when she realises the significance of that particular satchel. She instantly decides to return it to the elderly couple partly because of the demise of her own brother; she mourns for her deceased brother throughout the book.

Nevertheless, in order to reach another hotel and to begin her journey, she boards a cab and asks the driver to help her locate the associates of Lazarov. The story focuses on Stoyan’s struggle as a violinist and his experiences throughout the war. His definition of the labour camp twisted my heart and made me realise the facilities we have in today’s era. Furthermore, the person who accompanies Alexandra throughout the ordeal is called Bobby. He reluctantly decides to take her to the police station when she begs for help. Moreover, a contemporary shadow lurks behind Alexandra as she tries to unfold the tale of the late violinist. From Bulgaria’s ancient places to Bobby’s home, we witness an unbreakable thread of friendship and understanding between the two companions.

Not many are aware, but Elizabeth Kostova first visited Bulgaria in 1989 and found her soul mate during that trip. The beautiful yet haunting history of Bulgaria left a permanent mark on Kostova’s heart, and that persuaded her to compose this impeccable book. The Shadow Land will always have a special place in my heart as it is extraordinary in its own way; the sacrifices and brutal history wrenched my heart and left me in tears, but I enjoyed every bit of it. We often ignore the fact that numerous individuals gave up their precious lives in the past. Not a single loss should go unnoticed; evil minds are present in all societies, and we must keep striving to attain peace.

This review was submitted by Farah Zaki of www.impatientperson.com.

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10 Reasons Print Books Are Better Than E-Books

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Last week, the book industry released figures showing that e-book sales were down so far this year — the first time they have declined — while print remained relatively steady. When the news broke, we published a piece on 10 reasons e-books are better than print.

In the interest of fairness, we now offer a list for the other side: a 10-point case for print.

 

1. Print books have pages that are nice and soft to the touch. Paper makes reading physically pleasurable. Reading an e-book, on the other hand, feels like using an ATM. And after staring at a computer screen at work all day, how relaxing is it to curl up at home and stare at another screen?

 

2. Print books are better at conveying information. A study reported in the Guardian last year found that readers using a Kindle were less likely to recall events in a mystery novel than people who read the same novel in print. So if you want to do things like follow plots and acquire information, print is the way to go.

 

3. Print books are yours for life. The books you bought in college will still be readable in 50 years. Do you really think that in 10 years your e-reader – or book-reading watch, or virtual reality goggles – will work with today’s e-books?

 

4. Print books are physical reminders of your intellectual journeys. That beat-up copy of Catcher in the Rye on your bookshelf takes you back to sophomore year of high school. The Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda conjures up memories of late-night dorm room bull sessions. The food and wine-stained Lonely Planet Greece brings back that trip through the Greek Isles. A Kindle is just a Kindle.

 

5. Print books are great to share. There is nothing quite like putting a book into a friend’s hand and saying, “You’ve got to read this.” There are ways of sharing e-books – if both you and your intended recipient can navigate the Digital Rights Management system. But sharing an e-book has all of the warmth of sending an e-mail or paying someone on PayPal.

 

6. You can write in the margins of a print book, dog-ear the important pages, and underline the key sentences with a pencil. E-books often allow the digital equivalents of these acts – but they just aren’t the same. There is a link between physical gestures and cognition: the things we do to print books seem to help us to understand and remember better.

 

7. Print books have jackets, so people know what other people are reading – which makes reading a community-building act. A bus full of people with print books is a snapshot of what is on a town or a city’s minds – as well as a collection of ideas for what you should read next. A bus full of people reading e-books is just a lot of people staring at devices.

 

8. Print books are fairer to writers. The Author’s Guild has been beating the drum for years that publishers give writers a lower percentage of the royalties for e-books. That makes it harder for authors to earn a living – and to produce new books. If you want to support writers, who are struggling these days, more than publishing giants – buy a print book.

 

9. Print books are better for your health. A Harvard Medical School study last year found that reading a light-emitting e-book before bed interferes with your ability to sleep, with your alertness the following morning, and with your overall health.

 

10. Print books are theft-resistant. If you leave a book in your car, you can be pretty sure it will be there when you return. That is probably not true of your iPad, Kindle or other e-book reader. And a bonus: if you drop a print book in the bathtub, you can dry it out with a hairdryer.

 

This article has been taken from Huffington Post

Source:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-national-book-review/drop-that-kindle-10-reaso_b_8234890.html.

 

Darker days

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Get your copy of everyone is “EVERYONE BRAVE IS FORGIVEN” from us at http://www.libertybooks.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=33579

Chris Cleave, who is known for gripping and intense novels such as Incendiary, explores the troubled world of London during WWII in his latest endeavor, Everyone Brave is Forgiven. Spanning the years 1939-1942, the novel chronicles the adventures of sundry characters ranging from army officers to civilian volunteers. In an afterword the author claims that some of the characters are based on members of his own family. The book’s main protagonist, Mary North, is a woman hailing from an affluent family based in Pimlico. Had she chosen to lead a relatively sheltered life she could have avoided the horrors of war as many well-born women of that time did. However, she chooses to volunteer, first as a teacher, and then as an ambulance driver, compelled by a sincere desire to be of as much use to her country as she possibly can.

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Moral and principled though she is, Mary also comes across as something of a social rebel, going as far as to befriend colored children, which for a woman of her class was a definite no-no in the 1940’s. One of Cleave’s greatest novelistic strengths is his ability to develop a plausible atmosphere by means of his writing — he pulls no punches as he demonstrates the frightening ignorance with which whites regarded ‘negroes’ at that time. Racism depicted in the novel ranges from moderate to blatant, and may well come across as grossly offensive to a modern reader’s sensibilities. However, Cleave’s research is remarkably sound and this aspect of the book smacks of admirable authenticity. Part of Mary’s rage arises from the fact that able-bodied white children are rapidly evacuated to the countryside when war breaks out, leaving those who are colored and handicapped to face the dangers of a London that is consistently being heavily bombed by the Germans. While the world may have been shocked at the exposure of Alfred Rosenberg’s eugenic agenda during the Nuremberg trials, problematic issues of racial superiority were prevalent in varying degrees throughout Europe and the United Kingdom at the time, and Cleave emphatically underscores that point for us.

Mary’s well-meaning friend Hilda Appleby believes that she is doing her friend a genuine service by dissuading her from interacting extensively with “picaninnies.” Mary’s mother, Mrs North, patiently, but exasperatedly points out to her daughter that her sympathy will ultimately do more harm than good to the ‘niggers’ since it is both unrealistic and unsustainable. The heroine’s romantic interest in the earlier portion of the book, Tom Shaw, falls in love with her partly because of her indomitable spirit, a point that causes him to risk his own life while trying to help a colored schoolboy. Overriding the social evils of London are the grotesquely ugly horrors of war. Characters get killed in disturbing ways throughout the book — some are horribly eviscerated, others suffer fatal internal injuries due to explosions, yet others are killed instantaneously by deadly artillery, and many of them are simply crushed by collapsing buildings.

Tom chooses not to volunteer for military service, but his upper-crust friend Alistair Heath heroically does so. Like many others who survived the war, he lives to regret it, ultimately turning into a poster-child for post traumatic stress disorder. The true anguish underlying the plot machinations of Cleave’s novel stems not from the sufferings of those who die, but from the pain of those who live through the loss of loved ones and even the deaths of complete strangers. No major character escapes unscathed; one has her face disfigured by shrapnel, another loses an arm, and yet another is maimed to the point where she ends up with a permanent limp. It is hard to imagine that love could thrive in such a hostile environment, but in spite of everything Mary finds herself drawn emotionally to both Tom and Alistair. Indeed romantic love is just one facet of the deep sentimentality imbuing the book; familial affection, friendship, and mentoring all count as important in the grand scheme of Cleave’s work.

Depressing though Cleave’s novel may be, it helps to explain how Britain managed not only to survive over the course of the war but also rebuild itself in the aftermath. The beauty of the book lies in the fact that while no character is perfect, every single one of them is called upon to draw on reserves of strength that they did not know they possessed. Hilda goes from being a giddy lady preoccupied with little more than dreams of marriage to becoming a mature woman who displays true nobility of spirit. In spite of having chickened out when it came to serving in the armed forces, Tom’s altruism proves to be nothing short of admirable. Alistair and his world-weary superior, Simonson, put up with more psychological hardship than many would have thought humanly possible. And Mary humbly sticks up for her personal values even when the whole world first laughs at, and then reviles them.

This is not to say that the entire book is steeped in gore and gloom — there are many witty and wry moments, and one of the most endearing traits found in many of Cleave’s characters is their ability to laugh at themselves and at their shortcomings. Comic relief is much-needed in books of this ilk, if for no other reason than to forcibly remind one that depression can crush one during wartime as swiftly and surely as falling buildings. Suffering from an injury sustained during her work as an ambulance driver, Mary turns to morphine in order to cope with physical pain but then finds that she really needs the drug to dull her psyche so that she can be adequately “protected” from the myriad problems within her environment. Stationed in Malta, Alistair finds that his dreams of being a hero seem obscenely unreal when contrasted with the ugly relentlessness with which the fatalities of war tend to pile up.

No character remains unaffected by the end of the novel, not even Mary’s mother whose attempts to maintain a stiff upper lip and pristine social existence are shattered by the eccentric behavior of her child. When Mary takes two starving, colored schoolchildren to her parents’ private dining club in order to feed them, her parents’ acquaintances are so wildly horrified that the reader does not know whether to laugh or cry. In fact, Everyone Brave is Forgiven takes the reader through as much of an emotional roller-coaster ride as many of its characters are forced to experience — it is utterly impossible to remain indifferent to Cleave’s writing. Tortured though his landscape and canvas may be, this is the literary stuff of which future Nobel prizes are made.

This article is published in Dawn News

Website: http://www.dawn.com/news/1284467/darker-days

EL James and Patrick Ness join JK Rowling on Hollywood’s ‘most powerful’ authors list

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patrick

 

Alongside familiar entertainment royalty – JK Rowling, Stephen King and George RR Martin – a new report from the Hollywood Reporter calculates that EL James, Paula Hawkins and Patrick Ness have become three of the most powerful writers in Hollywood.

The magazine’s 25-strong list of authors is topped by Harry Potter author Rowling, who wrote the screenplay for the forthcoming film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them, and has television series based on both her Cormoran Strike thrillers and her first adult novel The Casual Vacancy coming up, as well as the sellout play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

King comes in second place, with the magazine citing him as Hollywood’s most adapted author ever and highlighting the February release of the film adaptation of his Dark Tower fantasy series, starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, which will also have a companion TV series.

Martin, who told the magazine that his Game of Thrones series “might need a feature to tie things up, something with a feature budget, like $100m (£76m) for two hours. Those dragons get real big, you know”, is in fourth spot – behind James Patterson in third. Patterson is the highest-paid author in the world, earning $95m in 2015 alone.

Fifty Shades of Grey author James comes in in fifth place. The trailer for the film adaptation of James’s novel Fifty Shades Darker received 114m views on the day of its release, and her telling of the same story from Christian Grey’s perspective – titled Grey – was the second bestselling book of last year. James, a producer on the films, told the magazine that the success of her erotic writing should be “a wake-up call to film-makers that there is a vibrant, fervent community of women that is undeserved by Hollywood at the moment when it comes to commercial, sexy love stories.”

Romantic fiction writer Nicholas Sparks, formerly a stalwart of the Hollywood Reporter’s list, fails to make the top 25 this year. Instead, English writer Neil Gaiman comes in ninth, cited for the forthcoming TV adaptations of Good Omens, the novel he co-wrote with the late Terry Pratchett, and of his novel American Gods. Canadian author Margaret Atwood is in 16th place, with TV adaptations of her novels The Handmaid’s Tale and Alias Grace coming up.

Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train, is new to the list in 19th place, while Room author Emma Donoghue is in 22nd, and Ness in 24th. Ness’s film adaptation of his novel A Monster Calls is out in December.

Howie Sanders, UTA partner and co-head of the book department, told the Hollywood Reporter that “the demand for creators and underlying material has never been stronger” in Hollywood.

“Hollywood is rife with jokes about writers – and the punchline of all of them is how powerless they are,” said the magazine. “But as this list of the 25 most influential authors in entertainment proves, no one in the industry is laughing any more.”

Written by: Alison Flood
Thursday 29 September 2016 

The Guardian.
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/29/el-james-and-patrick-ness-join-jk-rowling-on-hollywoods-most-powerful-authors-list

 

 

 

 11 Positive Benefits Of Reading

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Everybodies goal should be to read more because reading is a valuable way of self educating yourself and an excellent way of filling in time. 

As young children our mind is fed with stories and information, but sadly as we become adults, we far too often neglect one of the most important tools in life.

Reading is the best way to improve your mind and if you want to get smart and stay smart so you can have the edge over the average person you will need to learn new things and reading is one of the best ways to learn and expand your knowledge. 

Read a variety of books to suit your personal preferences, including fiction books, educational, mysteries and suspense thrillers, science fiction, history, novels, self help books and health related articles, because reading is a great way to feed your mind and spirit. 

The human mind is a never ending processing machine that is always seeking information, reading will help to nourish and stimulate your mind and keeps it engaged which will divert your mind from negative thinking and worrying.

Reading can also help to keep your mental faculties sharp and intact, as it will give your mind a mental workout which will help you to develop your mind instead of allowing it to become stale, dormant and unused. 

Try to make it your goal to read a book every week or two, you can catch a few pages first thing in the morning. If you commute by train or bus you can use that time wisely. 

You can read during your breaks and you can read in the evening, there are plenty of times when you can grab your book and find a little time reading.

Things are always changing, if you don’t read, then you won’t know what you’re missing and you will be devoid of all the latest information.

In some cases a lack of information can rob you of your right to live the best life experience possible and it can even cause you to miss out on vital and helpful information.

Because if you don’t know what’s wrong, you cannot fix it, if you don’t know what’s possible you will not push your boundaries and if you’re not aware of what you’re capable of, then you’re not going to achieve your true potential.

1) Reading Takes Your Mind Off Your Troubles

Burying your head in a book is a great way of taking your focus of attention off your everyday troubles and concerns for a while as it will transports you to seemingly better places of dreamlike and fantasy worlds.

Reading can give you an insight into many different cultures that you may know little about or you were not even aware they even existed.

It can open your mind up to new ways of thinking, perceiving and doing things that you once thought was impossible or not achievable to you. 

Reading is still the best source of information available and it can give you a great edge and distinct advantage in life. The secret to a successful life is information, the answers to nearly all our problems are documented in text somewhere.

As Mark Twain quoted, “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read”.

Books can stimulate and excite your imagination as well as arousing your curiosity, everything that exists and has ever existed is documented and can be found in a book, reading can teach you new skills, ideas and give you a new positive outlook on life.

Books can take you out of your world and away from your personal perspectives and difficulties for a while as they let you into the private mind, insights, the ideas and opinions of others.

Reading has many benefits and a book can serve more than one useful purpose at the same time. It is a form of relaxation while at the same time it can stimulate your mind, reading can help you to feel better, books can be our teachers, mentors and supply us with inspiration.

You can learn and better your life just by reading a book, authors and good writers can take you to places and imaginary worlds where no other form of entertainment or technology can rival.

If you want to expand your consciousness and your awareness of reality, then reading is still the best way of achieving this. 

Books can cover a more in depth look and wider scope into topics, as they can delve much deeper into a subject than any television documentary does, a film is often a shortened down version of a book. 

American entrepreneur, creator and businessman Steve Jobs in one of his famous quotes states the importance of reading. He stated that reading and learning are so critical to success, and a lack of information will keep you small and limited.

2) Reading Feeds The Craving Mind 

Our brain is like super powerful advanced computer, and like all good computers the better the information in the better the information out. 

Like all good computers, your mind needs to be fed information to keep it satisfied and stimulated and reading is the best source of input you can feed the brain.

Without new information we become stagnant, we are designed to grow and expand, we have been learning and growing  since the dawn of time and we will keep on doing it forever and a day. To prevent us from growing stale, we need to nourish our brain with new information.

When you don’t stimulate the mind with information or engross it in a compelling and captivating story this can sometimes lead to boredom and a mundane way of life.

Reading feeds your hungry mind with with an endless supply of knowledge and information which it seeks. 

Reading can help to broaden your mind or it can keep you intrigued in a story line where the power of curiosity will make you want to get to the end of the book as quickly as possible.

 

3) Reading Improves Your Quality Of Conversations

Your vast array of new found knowledge will help you to become more involved in discussions, you will be more able to instigate much more varied and interesting levels of conversations.

Obtaining more information will give you a distinct advantage over the others because you will have gathered a much wider understanding of many subjects and topics of conversation. Limited knowledge can seriously hold you back and leave you feeling left out in some social situations.

Ultimately, this will make you a very much more interesting and refreshing person to be around. Sadly the only topic of conversation these days seems to be all about celebrity gossip or what’s going on in reality TV shows or people’s lives.  

This narrow focus of attention takes our us away from all the wonderful information and events that are going on in the world and beyond.

People underestimate the power gained from reading, which can be priceless, reading expands your knowledge and awareness. Reading will also stimulate your creative imagination. 

However, there is one negative aspect of reading, be careful when you read negative feedback because it can have a strong impact on your perceptions, beliefs and what you do or do not achieve or attempt.

Reading can intrigue you while at the same time it will stir your imagination and unleash the creative part of your mind into action. 

But as well as all the serious stuff, books can be fun too. Reading can take you back into history and days gone by, it can also give you an insight into the now,  the future and the still unknown and unsolved.

4) Reading Engages Your Imagination

Story books can engage you in a world which is miles apart from our own, here you can have a glimpse of what goes on in the lives of many fictional characters.

When you engage your curious mind in a book you can experience empathy, sympathy and compassion with these make believe characters, this shows the power of your imagination as you bring these people and their experiences to life.

You can travel anywhere in a book and you get to meet and engage with the author and their fantasy worlds. Fiction books will allow you to use your imagination to paint your own version of the images, characters, and places.

Every book can give a different representation of the characters and the location to each reader because everybody’s imagination will perceive things slightly differently.

Reading requires you to use your creative imagination, stories stimulate curiosity and they intrigue you, books are the best way of stirring your creativity and absorbing knowledge. 

In fact, reading has such a powerful influence it can change your emotional state, sad stories can make you feel sad, stories of inspiration can motivate and inspire you while happy stories can improve our mood.

5) Helps You To Tap Into The Mind Of The Creative Thinkers

Some of the great books have been written by some of the best and most creative minds, you can delve into what goes on in the inner world of the great thinkers, here you can expand and develop your own mind and knowledge.

Reading can for a pleasant while take you away from normality, it gives you a chance to break free from the everyday rat race where you can enter a domain of fantasy, suspense, curiosity just by engaging your attention in a book.

Or you can gather a bank of informative information from the many self help books currently available where they can supply you with advice or a solution to your problems. 

Reading makes you more wiser not to mention the educational and learning benefits that are gained, it is enjoyable as well as factual. 

Life becomes so much more interesting when you explore new avenues or you venture into somebody else is imagination and creativity. 

You can never stop learning nor should you, our life is simply too short, and because books are small and compact, you can take a book with you anywhere you go and they need no power supply and they won’t get damaged.

Reading is one of the cheapest forms of entertainment, it is even free on the internet or libraries. It can stimulate your analytic thinking abilities and skills,

When you read a story, your mind will jump ahead of you, and it will try and work out and second guess the developing plot or mystery.

When you read a book you will expand your awareness and knowledge, each book or article will make you wiser and more intelligent.

Reading will also help to improve your vocabulary and if you enjoy writing, well written books will help you to improve your own writing abilities.

 

6) All Leaders And Successful People Read

Books are very powerful, they change and transforms lives. Nearly all successful people will tell you that there is at least one book that they read that completely turned around and transformed their life.

Information and knowledge can mean power, it can lead to inspiration and success, but only if you apply the right information to help you better your life.

But reading, is not just about information. Reading can also bring you great enjoyment and laughter which is great for your well-being, while the mystery novels will stimulate your imagination.

Reading can help you with loneliness or boredom, reading is an ideal way to pass the time away, especially on those long journeys or flights. 

There is nothing better than spending some lazy time on holiday or at weekends relaxing with your head buried in a book where you can quieten your mind, so make books your loyal friend and companion. 

Most people end up living their life in a kind of groundhog day. They think mostly the same old unhelpful thoughts day in day out because their mind has nothing better to focus on. You cannot succeed in life with limited knowledge and information.

The mind also loves a story, we are told stories from the moment we are born, many hypnotherapists use metaphors and stories because they are powerful ways of influencing the subconscious mind.

7) Reading  Stimulates Your Creativity  

Not many people have achieved success without knowledge and learning, the best way to absorb and acquire knowledge is through reading. One of the most powerful yet probably underestimated personal development tools is reading. 

The benefits of reading are limitless and it is an age old tradition and past time which will never become dated. With the technological revolution forever gathering pace many people now overlook the many health and therapeutic benefits of reading.

Reading helps you to become smarter and intelligent. One of the big advantages of reading a book, magazine or article is, it can help you expand spiritually and mentally, it can increase your intellect, improve your focus of concentration thus making you a wiser and interesting person.  

Other advantages of reading books also include, helping you to improve your spelling and vocabulary words.

If you live on your own or you spend long periods of time by yourself and you’re fed of watching TV, then reading can be a great alternative, and once you become engrossed in a good book you can lose all track of time.

Many people like to grab a book and just put their feet up and forget all their cares and worries for a while as they experience and enjoy the peace and tranquility gained by switching off and forgetting about the rest of the world, and you can never be alone if you are reading.

8) Reading A Book Can Improve Your Health

A lot of people find that reading can help them unwind and relax at night, it can help you to drift off to sleep more easily, because you’re leaving behind your troubles of the day as you allow your immersion in your book to relax you.  

Reading works the memory and helps improve your concentration, this helps to exercise and boost your memory powers because it encourages you to remember characters and facts.

Reading can stimulate the mind either through learning from fiction books or from non fiction as you engage your imagination in trying to work out story lines and plots especially in the murder mystery novels and the who done it.

Many women read romantic novels, probably because their partners are taking them for granted or not paying them enough attention. What you learn from reading can help you improve and better your life in many ways.

When you read, not only does it reduce your stress by taking your focus of attention off your worries, the mental activity your receiving which acts like a workout for the mind is believed to be beneficial to help slow down or prevent the onset of dementia. 

The mind is like the body, it needs exercise just like your muscles do, once you engage yourself in a good book, your focus of attention will shift off your troubles as you become oblivious to what’s happening in the outside world.

Other benefits of reading are, it can help you pass away the time and help to beat boredom, it is also great activity and companion, if you’re lonely or if you have to spend long periods on your own.

 

 9) Reading Can Help You Solve Your Problems

Many of the answers and solutions to our problems can be found or solved by reading and learning and now with the advancement of technology and the internet, websites and e-books the wealth of knowledge and information is limitless and readily available to us all at the touch of a button.

There are many health benefits associated with reading, the benefit reading gives your health are double edged. First, you can acquire the appropriate information which can help you to improve your health and your life.  

Secondly if you read on a regular basis it can help you to relax and quieten your mind which in turn can help you reduce your stress levels.

Other benefits of reading as far as your emotional well-being and your physical health is concerned are, it can give you some rest bite from the worries and anxieties of modern day life. 

When you are worried or experiencing periods of anxiety you can get stuck in your head, reading will shift your focus away from your troubles and concerns because your focus of attention goes onto the book or article you are reading and away from those petty worries.

This can soon begin to help you relax your mind and body and give you some much needed rest which can help you energize yourself. Also with the wealth of health and self-help knowledge about you can learn how to overcome your problems through reading.

Many of the most successful entrepreneurs and gurus started off on their road to success by reading a book.

The famous “Think and Grow Rich” book written by Napoleon Hill has made over 500 millionaires and the formula to his strategy has been used by many of the world’s finest entrepreneurs, it has been attributed to the success of some of the most wealthiest people worldwide. 

 

10) Reading Helps You To Grow

The benefits of reading are enormous, some books will inspire you, reading about other people’s success stories or how they have overcome near seemingly impossible feats which have required immense courage and determination can give you great inspiration to go on and achieve your dreams with the knowing that if other people have already done it then so can you.

Reading inspirational stories or reading where people have already achieved what you’re aiming to achieve can give you the motivation you need, knowing it can be done can encourage you. 

Reading is significant, everybody who wants to better their life should read more, because when we stop learning you stop growing and in this life you do one of two things, you either move forward in life or you stay where you are.

You can never stop learning and there is an endless supply of knowledge, information and entertainment available in the form of books, so forget about your daily troubles for a while and lose yourself in a good book, because the more you read the wiser you will become and the more you will know.

Many people struggle to find the time for reading, but because there are so many advantages of reading, then it can pay to find some here quiet, where you can have some much needed and valuable rest and relaxation, where for a while you can shut yourself off this sometimes hectic world we live in.  

When most people try and relax normally they find it hard to switch off their racing mind. Sometimes it can be difficult for some people to simply shut of their thoughts.

This is where the benefits of reading come into play, you can get that much needed rest and you can keep the mind occupied at the same time.

The beauty of this is you get your relaxation and you can learn at the same time. This will keep the mind nourished and enriched and it will improve your memory and concentration at the same time so you cannot lose.

If you need a solution to a problem, then it is better to learn and study from those who have already got the answers to what you’re looking for rather than starting from scratch and trying to figure it all out yourself.

11) The More You Read The More You Know 

Books have been around for hundreds of years, the pen and paper has been around a lot longer than television and computer video games. Before computers and the digital age, books were the only way of recording and storing information.  

Although the benefits of reading are priceless, it is important to realize that reading can be very damaging and self destructive if you absorb and believe negative opinions and destructive information.

Avoid all negative information, the wrong or unhelpful information or suggestions can be misleading, damaging, it can shatter your dreams and ambitions.

It can dishearten you and fill you with negative and limiting beliefs. So any information you feel is unhelpful, reject it immediately and stop reading it.

This article is published in Self Help Fix.
Web link: https://selfhelpfix.com/benefits-of-reading.php