Reading for Pleasure(为快乐而读书)
Reading for Pleasure
he first thing I want to insist on is that reading should be enjoyable. Of course, there are many books that we all have to road, either to pass examinations or to acquire information,from which it is impossible to extract enjoyment. We aro reading them for instruction, and the best we can hope is that our need for it will enable us to get through them without todium. Such books wo read with resignation rather than with alacrity. But that is not the sort of roading I have in mind. The books I shall mention in due course will help you neither to get a degree nor to earn your living, they will not teach you to sail a boat or get a stalled motor to run, but they will help you to live more fully. That, however, they cannot do unless you enjoy reading them.
Every man is his own best critic. Whatever the learned say about a book, however unanimous they are in their praise of it,unless it interests you, it is no business of yours. And you who read are the final judge of the value to you of the book you are reading. We are none of us exactly like everyone else, only rather like, and it would be unreasonable to suppose that the books that have meant a great deal to me should be precisely those that will mean a great deal to you. But they are books that I feel the richer for having read, and I think I should not be quite the man I am if I had not read them. No one is under an obligation to read poetry or fiction or the miscellaneous literature which is classed as belleslettres. He must read them for pleasure, and who can claim that what pleases one man must necessarily please another?
为快乐而读书
我想坚持的第一点是，阅读应当是愉悦的。 自然，我们每一个人都会为了通过考试，或是为了获取信息而阅读大量的书籍。从这样的阅读中我们无法获取快乐。我们读这些书是为了接受教育。我们最多只能希望自己对这些书籍的需要使得我们在读完之后不至于感到单调乏味。这样的书，我们读得无可奈何而不是轻松愉快。然而，我心目中的阅读不属于这一种。我在下面很快将要提到的那一类书既不能帮助你获取学位，也不能帮助你挣钱谋生，更不能教会你驾驶船只或修好出了故障的马达，然而，