Kolya."

Nikolai opened the very first door and found that books can be interesting. But he does not yet know how many interesting and important books there are in the world!

Every significant person has had a time in his life to greedily devour a huge number of books. Twelve-year-old Thomas Edison, having gained access to the public library, set himself the task of reading all the books in a row - and boldly began from the bottom shelf, where he came across such works: Newton's Elements, Technical Lexicon, Anatomy of Melancholy... This did not bother the boy in the least, and in his spare time he went through volume after volume, not missing a book or a page, until he had read as many books as could fit on a shelf fifteen feet long, that is, about four and a half meters of books. Only then did he come to the conclusion that it was better to stick to a certain choice rather than read everything. But the story is good, isn't it? And you can ask yourself: how many meters of books have I read?

Both today and among us, and not just among the Edisons, there are passionate readers who sacrifice everything for the book. Sometimes they have a very difficult time.

"I fell in love with books from the first grade. It is recorded in four libraries. Mom scolds me, says: "Give up the books, they are of no use!" He hides books from me. I read furtively. You can't imagine how much I love books. When I read, it seems that only the book exists for me. After all, how interesting it is! There are many good, kind, courageous people in books. We read about their immortal feats. And my mother scolds me: "Are you for the book again? It would be better to sit with Larisa" (my sister, she is 1 year and 5 months old). At school, they wonder why you read so much, do you like to read? I don't understand how you can live without a book, how you can not love it. After all, a book is everything. And my mother says: "Don't feed you bread, but let me read it." In the evening, in bed, I think about the books I have read. Sometimes in the evenings I sit reading a book, and my mother says: "Go to bed!" Did Alexei Meresyev manage to overcome himself in the book by B. Polevoy "The Story of a Real Man". Or "Captain Grant's Children" - what happened next? Or "The Mystery of the River of Evil Spirits" – did they, geologists, manage to get out of the gorge? I just can't wait to find out what happened next. I get up and go to read at night. Mom says: "I'll discharge you from libraries." Tell! Is it bad to read? Be able to read!"

Rimma, Kostanay, Kazakh SSR.

6

When you read a good book slowly, attentively, you often stop: a clever thought... A beautiful expression... practical words... It would be good to remember! But it is difficult to remember everything, and you will not learn it by heart...

A common notebook is needed. It is usually called the "Reader's Diary", but this is too serious and official. Just my general notebook, in which the first two or three pages are left blank. Every time you read and come across something that you are sorry to part with, you take out a notebook, write the name of the author, the title, the year and place of publication of the book, and then, without any formalities, write down everything that seems important to you. Sometimes verbatim, sometimes in your own words, sometimes you write down a thought that has arisen along the way — maybe not directly related to the book, but caused by reading it. You just need to develop your own system of signs, so that later, years later, you can accurately distinguish what is a quote, what is a retelling, and what is your thought. After each extract, a number: a page of the book. If you need it, you will always find it.

It happens that you write two lines out of a thick book; Sometimes, you can almost rewrite a thin brochure. It happens that you read a book, and there is no trace of it in the notebook. A notebook is not for a report, not for self-report, everything in it should be free, as you like. The notebook is my world, and it's even scary to imagine that someone will read it except me, although it's not a diary and there seems to be nothing personal about it.

When the notebook is finished, you can renumber its pages and make a table of contents on the first, blank sheets. In a year, one or two notebooks will be written, no more. This is the greatest jewel. Notebook by notebook, little by little, without chasing quantity, and now there are ten, fifteen of them. In your free time, you flip through them, look through them, remember the books you read, think again about the thoughts that you once liked – everything is yours. Even if the book is on the shelf, it is better to write out everything you need from it. It is a pity to emphasize it in your book too – only occasionally, with the lightest pencil, barely touching, and even then in a scientific book, not in a fiction book. To emphasize something in Pushkin's poems? For some reason, this seems to be blasphemy. But if I saw someone I knew underlining in a library book, I'm afraid that the acquaintance would end there. Not even because the book is someone else's, because he spoiled someone else's thing. A book is not a thing, a book is a book. But you have to be a very indelicate, rude person to emphasize at least a word, knowing that after you someone will read the book and stop at the underlined.

To underline, to write out is my personal, secret, business; How can one flaunt one's thoughts? It is dangerous to be friends with a person who is capable of this, and even to be acquainted.

7