Чтение.

Вот они безмолвно стоят перед нами, книги, — дома ли, в библиотеке ли, в чужой ли квартире, на прилавке. Если бы книги могли кричать! Если бы они сами обладали способностью заставлять читать себя! Какими бы мы все были умными и добрыми людьми!

Молчат, книги. Сверкает экран телевизора, требует внимания радио, манит афишей кино. Книги молчат. Нет ничего на свете терпеливее их, послушнее, безропотнее. Самые значительные книги были забыты, небрежно заброшены на чердаки, в чуланы, в подвалы. Книга всё стерпит, погибнет, не издав ни стона. Столетиями будет ждать своей очереди и неторопливо раскроется в незнакомых руках, ничем не выдавая своего волнения. Книги не жалуются, когда их не читают, и не радуются, когда их открывают. Полные страданий, мудрости, улыбок, иронии, лукавства, гнева, живые, каким и не всякий человеке может быть, книги замирают на полках. И всё-таки они кричат,

Услышим их.

«Ни дня без строчки», — сказал древний писатель. «Ни дня без странички», — скажем мы, читатели, вслед за ним.

Великая это радость — жить на земле ещё и читателем. За всё время существования нашей страны мы — первое поколение, которое все, до одного человека, умеет читать. Так давайте же читать!

What are we looking for under the book binding? Why do we open it?

We are looking for pleasure. We are looking for answers to what torments us, perhaps unconsciously torments us. We are looking for wisdom. And we are looking for entertainment - the book gives us entertainment. Of course, we are also looking for knowledge. We want the book to tell about ourselves, and we look for examples in it by which we could determine our goals. What is good, what is bad, what is evil and what is good – we also learn about this from books. We look for friends in books. Pechorin and Natasha Rostova are closer than their neighbors: we know more about Pechorin and Natasha. No living person will open his soul to us with such sincerity as the hero of a good book.

At the beginning of the list, the word "pleasure" was placed. Perhaps the reader was surprised. But this is certain, it is mandatory! If there is no enjoyment of the book, there is no reading, there is no reader. Indifferent turning of pages, cold observation of what is happening in a book is not reading. Admiration of the art of the writer and poet, relishing the word and combinations of words, delight at a successful expression, amazement at the skill of depiction and description, excitement caused by the depth of thought — this is reading. And this enjoyment of mastery teaches us, but in some other sense of the word "teaches", in such a way that the concept of "learning" does not quite fit. Skill, depth of thought tune us to a sublime mood, show the heights of life, develop taste. Mastery is always instructive.

In his old age, Goethe reread the whole of Molière every spring to maintain his taste. Even he had to apply himself to the standard of purity of speech, elegance of thought, high morality. This is Goethe. What should we do then?

Take care of your taste.

What determines the artistry of a book? How to learn to distinguish a good book from a bad one? Strengthening the taste from relaxing?

It is not the word, not the style that ultimately determines the quality of the book, but its direction, the pressure of ideas, the saturation of content. They say it's an "empty" book. What about "empty"? It has three hundred pages of text! But the author had nothing to say that was not known before him. Sometimes three hundred or a thousand pages were written and printed, but there was emptiness in them, ideological and artistic.