The Wandering Companies shall know of your journey, and those that have power for good shall be on the watch. I name you Elf-friend; and may the stars shine upon the end of your road!
Tolkien, J. R. R.. The Lord of the Rings
The literary world has taken a beating during the last year or so. Famous ‘memoirs’ have proven to be bogus. Fan faves have proven to be largely AI-generated. Many of our greatest stories have been banned in some places.
While this could all be very depressing, there’s still lots of fantastic literature out there. As a writer, I love this era in many ways. There are so many innovative, genuine authors out there, combining genres, inventing/highlighting new ones, self-publishing rather than either waiting to find an agent or just publishing what they want to write without interference.
Spicy romance/romantasy is an enormous market that’s become mainstream. I remember the days when the Romance section of a bookstore was thought to be just for bored housewives, but now authors at those conventions tend to sell out their entire stock.
BIPOC, LGBTQ+, children’s literature, monster romance/sex – whatever your interest, it’s out there and earning respect. This gives we authors a lot of freedom to explore all kinds of ideas that might have been rejected by traditional publishers in the past, and the popularity of these types of stories shows that they definitely have an audience.
This is “Get Caught Reading Month”, and in addition to having such a great writing landscape, neurological studies have shown how good reading is for us on many physical and mental levels.
Do you remember how engaged you were as a child when you read a great story? How much you didn’t want it to end? How it stayed with you for years, or even the rest of your life?
When I first read The Lord of the Rings, it captured me in a way no other book has done since. Not that there haven’t been great books, but my first experience with adult fantasy and the world of Middle Earth was utterly magical. I’ve reread it many times, and even visited ‘Hobbiton’ in New Zealand. It was like stepping into the book for a little while.
Pilgrimages to book locales happen all the time now since The Bridges of Madison County made that a thing to do. Fans of Jane Austen can immerse themselves in her world at the very popular annual Jane Austen Festival in Bath, England. The Paris of The DaVinci Code, Italy Under the Tuscan Sun – there are so many great stories that have inspired people to travel to where they took place. A visit to Dublin took us into the world of Dracula, where one of the most famous tales in history was written.
Reading a book demands our entire attention. Daily life fades, and we escape into the story. When we read about the adventures of the characters, we live them alongside. We enter that world.
We enter an altered state of consciousness. Not only is it pleasurable, it strengthens our neural pathways.
We build understanding and empathy. We learn what it means to walk in someone else’s shoes. Even readers of horror end up bolstering their own resilience as they watch the characters doing amazing things to try and survive.
Brain imaging has shown that these benefits can persist for days. A study in 2023 showed that people who read regularly had a significantly lower risk of depression. A 12-year study of adults in the 50-plus age bracket who read often had a 20-percent lower risk of dying in the years that followed.
Reading results in a lowered heart rate, reduced muscle tension (don’t we all need that!), and decreased levels of the stress hormone cortisol. We even sleep better, as we leave the complexities of the day behind and go on a virtual journey.
I mean, if those aren’t great reasons to keep on, or to resume, reading, I don’t know what are.
So this month, and all the other months ahead, GET CAUGHT READING!