I am personally quite fond of books. Though, I am often unable to read as often as I would like because life gets hectic sometimes.

However, we should not forget to also enjoy these little things when you can. It can actually be quite beneficial to read a book every now and again.

According to an article from Healthline.com titled “Benefits of Reading Books: How It Can Positively Affect Your Life” written by Rebecca Joy Stanborough there are many things you can gain from reading. Based off of Stanborough’s article, reading more can expand your vocabulary and decrease stress.¹

In my case Stanborough is correct in what she writes. While I can not say for certain that reading more books has expanded my vocabulary, consistent reading has introduced me to words that I now use on a day to day basis.

One of my favorite aspects of reading because regardless of what I have spent my time looking for I may have gained something new from it either in the form of a word or knowledge. This also goes for destressing, when I read a book I like in my own time I find myself become much more relaxed.

Reading for yourself and reading for school are two very different experiences. What is important to remember is that reading is meant to be fun so when going to read instead of seeing it as a school assignment treat it like a brand new show that just happens to be made on paper.

This is how you make reading books a much more enjoyable experience allowing yourself to feel that you did not waste your time reading something that ended up being less fun because you became stressed trying to finish it. Another part of reading is actually getting a book which is difficult for some people.

This is many because just as everything else’s prices double so do books making them quite expensive. The good news is that this is fixable through the source of online books.

Many of these sites cost money to download certain books but there are also many
free sources that allow you to view the books for free ranging from Shakespeare to pretty much anything you could think of. A source I found discussing what websites have these free resources was an article from Lifewire.com titled “18 Best Sites to Download Free Books in 2023” and written by Stacy Fisher.

Fisher listed many options to look at, each with their own pros and cons list. The options that I saw to be worth mentioning had some of the least amount of cons out of the article including but not limited to Free-eBooks.net, Archive.org, and Google Play Books. ²

However, some things that should be noted for each of these sites is that for Google Play Books you need to have an account, for Archive.org it is quite slow and a bit difficult to navigate, and lastly, Free-eBooks.net unfortunateley only allows you to download 5 books per month. While I have never used Free-eBooks.net and Archive.org they seem to be pretty good sources for finding books someone may want to read.

I do however recommend Google Play Books in particular because out of the sites mentioned that is the one I am the most familiar with but you should try them all if you have the time. However, for many people reading is just not as fun to them and would much rather listen than to stare at a page.

The good news is, there are many ways to enjoy books that are not just reading. According to an article from Codpast.org titled “Top 5 Alternatives to Reading” some examples of different ways to read included audiobooks, podcasts, and even TED Talks.³

To note though, I do not often use these forms of audio. So I am unable to speak of this from personal experience.

Despite this, I can definitely say that this type of ‘reading’ is definitely helpful if you want to read something but are extremely busy and need to prioritize other parts of your life. While it is not required to read in your free time it can really be fun and a way to take a minute to pause from what may have been a stressful day.

Consider picking up a book or maybe go look to see if you can find any e-books or even an audiobook. Something might just pleasantly surprise you.

Cited Sources:

1- “ Benefits of Reading Books: How It Can Positively Affect Your Life” written by Rebecca Joy Stanborough from Healthline.com
https://www.healthline.com/health/benefits-of-reading-books#increases-empathy

2- “18 Best Sites to Download Free Books in 2023” written by Stacy Fisher from Lifewire.com
https://www.lifewire.com/download-free-books-3482754

3- “Top 5 Alternatives to Reading” written by The Codpast from TheCodpast.org
https://thecodpast.org/2015/08/top-5-alternatives-to-reading-2/