‘There is only one way to read’- Doris Lessing

The well known writer and the noble prize winner Doris Lessing wrote about reading in her book The Golden Notebook.

“I say to these students who have to spend a year, two years, writing thesis about one book: “There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops , picking up books that attracts you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you , skipping the parts that – and never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is the part of a trend or a movement.”

Right time to read a book

Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty – and vice-versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you. Remember that for all the books we have in print, are as so many that have never reached print, have never been written down – even now in the age of compulsive reverence for the written word, history, even social ethic, are taught by means of stories.

..And the people who have been conditioned into thinking in terms of what is written and unfortunately nearly all the products of our educational system can do no more than this – are missing what is before there eyes. For instance, the real history of Africa is still in the custody of black storytellers and wise men, black historians and medicine men: it is a verbal history, still kept safe from the white men.

Everywhere, If you keep your mind open, you will find the truth in words not written down. So never let the printed page be your master.

(Reference-From the introduction of The Golden Notebook, a book Written by Doris Lessing. Page number 17-18.)