{"id":462,"date":"2011-03-31T07:17:21","date_gmt":"2011-03-31T13:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/?p=462"},"modified":"2011-03-31T07:17:21","modified_gmt":"2011-03-31T13:17:21","slug":"why-do-i-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/?p=462","title":{"rendered":"Why do I read?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This question was posed the other day on <a href=\"http:\/\/bookblogs.ning.com\/\">Book Blogs<\/a>, and I wanted to expand upon the most common, and most true answer: To escape.<\/p>\n<p>There are lots of ways to escape, including TV and movies, but more often than not, I choose books. The reason is, that when I watch a TV show, though it might make me laugh or cry, it is always about someone else. I&#8217;m a passive observer, not an active participant.<\/p>\n<p>With books, on the other hand, I can become the characters. I get to know them intimately. This is why I am particularly fond of points of view that deeply penetrate a character&#8217;s mind. It is, IMO, what books can do that movies cannot.<\/p>\n<p>It is also why, unsophisticated as I know it makes me, I don&#8217;t often read classics. There are many great stories out there, and I sample enough of them to be tolerably well-read, but I think books have served a different purpose over time, and I often find it difficult to engage these wonderful old stories on their level. I tend to appreciate them rather than truly enjoy them.<\/p>\n<p>So give me science fiction, or romance, or fantasy, or mystery. Genre doesn&#8217;t matter to me. Just give me a character I can lose myself in. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This question was posed the other day on Book Blogs, and I wanted to expand upon the most common, and most true answer: To escape. There are lots of ways to escape, including TV and movies, but more often than not, I choose books. The reason is, that when I watch a TV show, though [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chitchat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":463,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions\/463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}