The Pleasure of Reading

读书之乐

All the wisdom of the ages,all the stories that have delighted mankind for centuries,are easily and cheaply available to all of us within the covers of books----but we must know how to avail ourselves of this treasure and how to get the most from it.

岁月沉淀的智慧，千年不衰的故事，只要打开扉页，这一切便唾手可得。如何拥有这些瑰宝，如何掌握其精华，却是我们最该费心思了解的知识。

I am most interested in people, in meeting them and finding out about them. Some of the most remarkable people I’ve met existed only in a writer’s imagination, then on the pages of his book, and then,again, in my imagination. I’ve found in books new friends, new societies, new worlds.    

  我对书中的人物感兴趣，乐衷于与人交往，了解他们。一些超凡脱俗之辈只存在于作者的想像中，接着跃然于纸上，然后徘徊于我的脑海里。在书海里，我觅得了新朋友，窥见了新社会，发现了新世界。

If I am interested in people, others are interested not so much in who as in how. Who in the books includes everybody from science-fiction superman two hundred centuries in the future all the way back to the first figures in history. How covers everything from the ingenious explanations of Sherlock Holmes to the discoveries of science and ways of teaching manners to children.   

   如果说我感兴趣的人，别人感兴趣的，与其说是人，还不如说是事。书里的人物，从历史里记载的第一批历史人物一直到科幻小说里出现在两百年后的超人，形形色色，应有尽有。书中的事，从福尔摩斯的神妙剖析，到科学的种种发现，直至教育孩子礼仪的各种方式，五花八门，无奇不有。

Reading is a pleasure of the mind, which means that it is a little like a sport:your eagerness and knowledge and quickness make you a good reader.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.

   读书是一种精神的享受，有点类似体育运动。善于读书的人需要强烈的渴望，渊博的学识，敏捷的反应。读书之所以是一种乐趣，并非是因为作者在向你讲述什么，而是因为读书能使你的思维活跃起来。你的思绪随着作者的思绪一起驰骋，甚至比作者更胜一筹。你的经历与作者的经历相比后，你会得出自己的结论，或者相同，或者相悖。在理解作者的思想上，得出自己的见解。

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.  

每本书都自成一体，犹如独户房子，而汇聚在图书馆里的书就像是城市里的千家万户。尽管他们各成一体，但累聚一起就非比寻常了。他们彼此相惜相依，并和其他城市相联系。相同的想法，或者相关的，融入不同的作品，一再困扰人类生活的问题也在文学作品里反复出现，只是不同时代的著作呈现了不同的锦囊妙计。

Reading can only be fun if you expect it to be. If you concentrate on books somebody tells you 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.

   只有你期待读书给你带来乐趣，你才能够如愿以偿。你若只读别人推荐的“必读”之书，十有八九你会觉得索然寡味。不如放下你手中不喜欢的书，另试一本，直到你找到一本有点看头的书，心情轻松地读下去，你必能乐在其中。通过博览群书，你变得愈加高尚、聪敏、和善、温雅，那时你就不会觉得读书是份苦差事了。