My reading experience
Reading is a part of everyone’s lives, some people read more, some read less. Nevertheless, reading remains integral to everyone. I believe that everyone has their own reading experience. This is my reading life and reading experiences.
When I was little, I used to read almost every day. I used to read Chinese folk tales and legends, and many different cartoon books that were translate from different languages to Chinese. At one point, I remembered that I read every book at home that I can read at least twice. I was able to recite many of the stories that I read. Sadly this did not continue for long. When I entered primary school I started to read less, but still quite a bit on the weekends, but after I moved to Australia, my reading life took another big hit. Since we are in Australia, the supplies of Chinese books were reduced, and I started to go to the library to find Chinese copies of “The Adventure of TinTin”. My parents frowned upon me for reading Chinese books because we are in an English speaking country, and that marked the drastic decline in my reading.
I was simply not interested to read anymore, I only read the very simple books that my primary school allowed me to read, due to my poor English skills. I was more engrossed in playing video games and watching videos on YouTube. This was between year 4 to year 7. during this time, writing anything was like trying to draw water out of a rock. Whenever I was asked to write a creative essay, I would always get stuck on figuring out what to write about, because I never liked writing ideas from other sources, but at the same time, I couldn’t think of anything interesting. To be fair, I also didn’t like a lot of genres as well, “love” was out of the question for me at the time, “crime and mystery “was too tedious for me (to write and read), and “adventure” could become cliché very easily, so for that period, I only read non-fiction (though still not much every week), and thus I was only really able to write informative or persuasive pieces decently. It was pretty obvious that because of the amount that I read, even my writing skills was effected.
I have to say though, through this period of time, I didn’t know how thankful I was, in hindsight that my tuition made me read and recommended me some interesting books. During the time (grade 4–7), I was introduced to a book that I still remembered reading vividly. The book was “The Garden of The Purple Dragon” by Carole Wilkinson. It was one of the first book that I read that I was really invested in. It had a good pace, and an interesting story, plus the setting was in ancient China so it felt really at home for me. It was able to relight my interest in books for a bit. I wanted to look for the sequel and prequel for this book, and along the way, I also discovered some other books that I wanted to read.
This boost in ready also didn’t last. When I started to study to get into selective schools, the books which I read steadily declined. Luckily this time, it wasn’t as bad as the instance before, however my writing was improving at a visibly slower rate than when I read somewhat regularly. After the testings was over, it did not really improve a whole lot. Like before, I was simply more interested in video games and YouTube, as that was probably one of the most relaxed half a year of my life in recent memory.
When I got to MHS, it was the beginning of something very different. Everyone was so much more competitive in everything. I like of flouted around during my year 9, I still did decent, but I do regret not trying my best as my marks could have been so much better if I tried harder. Anyhow, I digress. After the final exams I was introduced to manga. This probably caused a great change in my reading life. Despite, these stories being told with the aid of pictures, I got stories where the characters’ actions properly moved in emotionally. I even cried to two of my favourite mangas at the time. It was a breath fresh air to me, I was able to relate to the characters so well and the story felt original. On top of all of that I could control the pace of the story, which made it all the more enjoyable. If sparked my interest in reading again. Through the 2018–2019 holiday, I even decided to read “The Merchant of Venice” for some reason.
This brings us to where I am now. Despite my attempt to start reading again, I still don’t read quite enough, but reading is like a rocket for me, it takes a while to ignite but it will get going fast. During my roller-coaster of an experience with read, I can to the conclusion that read is definitely agree that reading is incredibly important.
Dylan Thomas is the author of the poem “Notes on the Art of Poetry”.
I could never have dreamt that there were such goings-on
in the world between the covers of books,
such sandstorms and ice blasts of words,
such staggering peace, such enormous laughter,
such and so many blinding bright lights,
splashing all over the pages
in a million bits and pieces
all of which were words, words, words,
and each of which were alive forever
in its own delight and glory and oddity and light.
Each story is interesting in their own way, and if they are well written the words might as well be live. flipping through an interesting book can fell like searching through a treasure chest. In many ways, I feel like I similar feelings about books as Dylan Thomas . While reading I some time definitely found that words
“
were alive forever
in its own delight and glory and oddity and light.
”
In the recent weeks, I have read a book called “2062, The World That Ai Made” by Toby Walsh, and “Then” by Morris Gleitzman. The book from Toby Walsh was definitely intriguing for me to read as he goes through millions of researches and arguments on the subject to discover if it was even possible for AI to take over our world in 40 years, and the subsequent consequences comes with being controlled by Ai. This was a field which I was interested in, but it was also a non-fiction book, so I did not really have high expectations for it, however the surprising statistics kept me entertained throughout the book. The pace felt natural for this type of book, and due to its frequent sub-titles, there was a real sense progression. It was a fun read all things considered. “Then” on the other hand, felt a bit lacking in certain areas. For one, the book was way too short for its story, but the pacing felt a bit messy, as it was fast at some places when important events were occurring but then for the next 50 pages nothing important happens. The character some felt too “unnatural” in some points in the story, despite these being kids in war time, they felt way too mature at some points in the story. To me, the criticism above were all nothing compared to the ending. This was the biggest disappointment in the story for me. It lack all emotional response from the main character and it ruined what could have been and should have been the explosion big emotional build up in the story. Despite all of my criticism, the book is still good, it has a good story and interesting character, but they were simply not given enough time to develop. I was extremely late in reading this book, but it was a recommendation made by a friend, and to me it did not live up to the expectation that everyone built.
I have many books that I liked. If I was on a desert island I would bring the following books:
“唐诗宋词元曲三百首 “(collection of 300 pieces of poems/literature from Tang Dynasty, Song Dynasty, and Yuan Dynasty) author: various
I would have these, because they were the three books that were given to me by my English, Chinese and Maths teacher when I was about to leave for Australia. Even though it is hard for me to appreciate them, they are very dear to my heart.
“To Kill A Mocking Bird” Harper Lee
I want this book with me as I would like to have read it at least once in my life.
“The Garden of The Purple Dragon” Carole Wilkinson
This is another piece of memory that I am very fond of. It was arguably one of the full length books that I appreciated.
“红楼梦”(Dream of the Red Chamber) 曹雪芹 Cao Xueqin
It is a legendary book in China. It was said to not have any excessive word, and the characters were vividly described. So yet again, I would have this book with me just because I would like to at least have viewed it once in my life.
“The Secret River” Kate Grenville
I received this book from my tutor as a gift for getting into MHS. A book about Australia’s history.
“Head In the Cloud” William Poundstone
A humous book about millennials. I never got to finish this book, I only got to chapter 4 but I wanted to finish it.
