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Reading is fun, not because the writer is telling you something, but because it makes your mind work. Your own imagination works along with the author’s or even goes beyond his. Your experience, compared with his, brings you to the same or different conclusions, and your ideas develop as you understand his.
Every book stands by itself, like a one-family house, but books in a library are like houses in a city. Although they are separate, together they all add up to something; they are connected with each other and with other cities. The same ideas, or related ones, turn up in different places; the human problems that repeat themselves in life repeat themselves in literature, but with different solutions according to different writings at different times.
Reading can only be fun if you expect it to be. If you concentrate on books somebody tells you “ought ” to read, you probably won’t have fun. But if you put down a book you don’t like and try another till you find one that means something to you, and then relax with it, you will almost certainly have a good time—and if you become as a result of reading, better, wiser, kinder, or more gentle, you won’t have suffered during the process.
参考译文：
读书之所以有趣，不是由于作者告诉了你什么，而是由于书本促使你思考。你的想象与作者的想象一道展开，甚至超过作者的想象。你的体验与作者的体验进行对照，使你得出与作者相同或不同的结论，而你在了解作者思想的同时便形成了自己的思想。
单独一本书犹如独家小院，汇集到图书馆则好似城市中的千家万户。虽然仍是各自独立，结合起来便成为一个有意义的整体。千家万户彼此相依，又与其他城市的家家户户相连。相同的思想或相关的思想在不同的地方出现;人生中经常遇到的问题在文学中也是反复出现，但其解决办法则随着时代的不同和作品的不同而各异。
读书之所以能成为乐事首先必须是你期待着从中得到乐趣。如果你只读别人说是你“应该”读的书，那大概就不会有什么乐趣可言。但如果你把自己感到没劲的书放下另换别的，直到发现一本你认为有意思的书，然后轻松地读下去，那么几乎可以肯定你会感到很快活的。假若你能由此而变得更聪明有为、更和蔼温厚，那么阅读本身就不会是一种苦差事了。
