My Favorite Hobby: Reading Essay Sample

I can’t get down to explicate how reading has enriched my life. I live in a little fishing small town called Lancaster. 200 stat mis north-east of Anchorage. Alaska. It’s purely a fishing and excavation town with a year-long population of 424. We’re a loyal. self-sufficent group. and count among our ranks five instructors. an architecht. two medical physicians and a tooth doctor. Unfortunately. we are over three hours from the nearest metropolis. restricting our entree to most cultural events. sports and other typical extracuricular actiivites.

That’s where reading comes in. My local sires were an hardworking clump. who savored their independency yet acknowledged the demand to augment the town’s resources. I portion their position about Lancaster being a assorted approval. We have peace and repose in our isolation. but we otherwise lack indispensable stimulation from the “lower 49” . In 1977. a little group of locals. including my freshly married parents. solicited financess from our county place in Anchorage to finance the first local library. They negotiated a rental for a 400 square pes dawdler on the nor’-east corner of our town square. Since June of 1978. 223 Main Street has been our local library and it’s my favourite topographic point in the universe.

The library has merely one paid employee and operates purely with voluntaries. I’ve worked there for free since I was 14. teasing books. forming shelves and functioning frequenters. My greatest accomplishment has been reading about every book we have. Through the power of literature. cubic decimeter feel that I’ve visited and experienced topographic points far off from rural Lancaster. I began at age six with the Nancy Drew enigma series. I was amazed at her craft and accomplishment and her ability to ground her manner out of any state of affairs. By age 10 I had progressed to the Alice Dywer series that chronicles a family’s journey across Europe during the World Wars. The narratives moved me beyond belief. as if by magic conveying to life the history lessons I was taking in school. While my categories required me to memorise day of the months. names and conflicts. the Dwyer books introduced a human position to the events. and made me see the annihilating effects of each conflict on the people who lived at that place. They besides gave me a new regard for our soldiers who fought in the war.

Since my first-year twelvemonth in high school. I have been exhaustively enraptured by Shakespeare. While I found his manner intimidating at first. I have come to love his facile prose. I besides marvel at how authoritative his work is. How many other writers produced characters and narratives so cosmopolitan in entreaty that we remember them after more than two centuries? Who else but Shakespeare could redefine our linguistic communication. presenting new words. phrases and platitudes? My life would hold a awful nothingness without his work.

Sadly. province support is limited and we are ever faced with the challenge of contending for our library. This past twelvemonth. I assumed a more administrative function and added fundraising to my list of accomplishments. I solicited contributions from townsfolk and conducted used book thrusts in three environing towns. I besides developed an inter-library loan plan in the county. increasing our entree to antecedently unavailable rubrics. I appreciate how reading has broadened my life. and I want the younger kids in town to harvest that benefit every bit good.

I can’t conceive of the exhilaration I’ll feel when I foremost visit Harvard’s libraries. I am awestruck by the possiblility of holding entree to over a million rubrics in 100s of subjects. I know at first hand the power of the written word to transform lives. It has greatly broadened mine. It’s given me the assurance to go forth Lancaster. cognizing that I am every bit educated and well-versed in cultural and universe events as person in Paris. Equally long as I can read. I can go anyplace. larn anything and bask the wisdom of superb writers throughout history. Whenever I have trim clip. you can happen me at the library.