The Pleasure of Reading閱讀的快樂

We can easily get all the wisdom of the ages， all the stories that have delighted mankind for centuries—but we must know how to use 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.

Reading is a pleasure of mind. Your eagerness for 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 writers 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.

我們可以很容易地獲得各個時代的智慧，獲得許多世紀以來使得人類愉悅的所有故事——但我們必須知道如何使用這個寶庫，如何從中汲取最多的營養。世界上最不幸的人，就是那些從來沒有發現讀好書是多么讓人滿足的人。

閱讀是一種心靈之樂。你求知的迫切愿望和思維的敏捷使你成為好的讀者。閱讀很有趣，不是因為作者告訴你什么事情，而是因為它使你的大腦活躍起來。你自己的想象力與作者的想象力相伴而行，甚至超出作者的想象力。你的經驗，跟作者的經驗進行比較，使你得出跟作者相同或相反的結論，而當你理解作者思想的時候，你自己的思想也發生著變化。

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 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. Whenever you start reading you connect yourself with one of the families of ideas， and finally you not only find out about the world and the people in it， you find out about yourself， too.

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 wont have fun. But if you put down a book you dont 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 wont have suffered during the process.

每本書都自成一體，就像獨門獨戶的宅院，但圖書館里的書就像城市的房屋。雖然這些書各自獨立，但這些書放在一起便作用非凡；它們互相聯系，也和其他城市聯系在一起。同樣的思想，或者相關的思想，在不同的地方出現；在文學作品中重復出現的人類問題，卻在不同的時代不同的作品中，有著不同的解決方案。書互相影響，它們連接著過去、現在和將來，并像家庭一樣，有自己的“后代”。每當你開始閱讀的時候，你就把自己和思想之家中的一個成員聯系在一起。最后，你不但了解了世界和世界上形形色色的人，也了解了自己。

只有當你期望閱讀能帶來樂趣的時候，閱讀才會有樂趣。如果你專注地讀別人告訴你“應該”讀的書，你也許不能從中獲得樂趣。但是，如果你放下一本你不喜歡的書，試著讀另外一本，直到發現一本你感覺有價值的書，然后輕松地讀下去，幾乎可以肯定，你會讀得很愉快。如果閱讀后你變得更優秀、更聰明、更友善或者更平和，那么在閱讀的過程中，你不會覺得痛苦。

Word Bank

delight /d?'la?t/ v. 使愉快；使高興

This news will delight his fans all over the world.

separate /'sepr?t/ adj. 獨立的；單獨的

He raises two separate issues.