Read Books...please?

As usual, this blog has a good amount of my opinion, for better or worse! *gasp*

I would like to open with a simple request: read! 

Is it because I have a book on the market? Maybe….  But, not really…seriously.

This post is not meant to be preachy, though it may come off as such. My message is meant simply to give encouragement! 

I have been watching some pretty bad TV and movie trailers and thinking…wow, it doesn’t matter if it is bad because even bad movies get seen.

I give you a scenario: Someone(s) on a Saturday night is watching a movie that they really intended to watch and then the ‘bad’ one follows it. They leave it on and watch it…even though it’s bad! So, theoretically, we can watch bad movies by accident! You cannot, however, read a book by accident. It has to be intentional, right?

Music, for the most part, is something that you have a very real emotional attachment or detachment to right away also. You only need thirty seconds or less to know whether or not you like a song, but a book might take a couple of chapters to get into a groove. Same thing with comics and graphic novels, but they at least have some visual aid help! (And you would be reading—yeah!)

All in all, I think we need to encourage our little ones, sons and daughters of all ages, siblings, parents, friends and everyone else to read a little bit more. Increasing one’s vocabulary increases your knowledge, which in turn, increases your IQ and may lead to greater academic or financial success down the road. It also might give you advantages in social circles as well…you never know.

Let’s face it, it wouldn’t hurt to turn off the boob tube and pick up a book every once in a while, even for entertainment (*gasp again*). I know as I read in my younger days, I was forced to look words up that I did not understand or I was able to understand their basic meaning due to how the word was used in the context of the sentence.  And yes, I was one of those kids.

In this day and age of social media and instant messaging/texting, one can’t help but notice that the populace (including yours truly) has been abbreviating words. This ends up becoming something that we may start to do in emails at work, or send to a boss or some other professional that will immediately reflect on you in a negative way, even if it was unintentional. I have been getting back into the practice now of typing things out as Mr. Webster intended! 

Then there are common usage mistakes that I see in Social Media every single day. The most common example is your and you’re. ‘Your’ is a possessive pronoun while ‘you’re’ is a contraction of ‘you are’. 

I’ll let Ross from Friends explain it to you...

This is my silly cat, placed here to see if you are still paying attention!

Anyway, all that I am trying to establish is that reading, in my opinion, is:

A) Good for your overall mindset

B) Has a pretty good chance of increasing your vocabulary, and

C) Might just make you smarter 

Now, go read something! And as always, I want to hear from you!

Oh, and if you need a suggestion, there is a fantasy novel from this guy that you can purchase online…

See you in Wothlondia! Cheers!

Please visit: www.ashenclaw.com to enjoy an extended reading experience, see direct links to purchase Covenant of the Faceless Knights and to see what else Ashenclaw Studios, LLC has in store in the future!

All maps, names and content copyright Ashenclaw Studios, LLC 2011 unless otherwise noted.