Books: My Imagination Charging Station

My favorite way to kick back during the summer is reading, and the library is a great place to thumb through books any given summer day. Since I was a kid, reading was encouraged throughout the year, but as a young adult in college, is something I can often only really afford to properly (and voraciously) indulge in during the summer. So for me, reading during the summer is a long-engrained habit by which I can enjoy the expansion of my mind and imagination and have the tactile enjoyment of holding a story in my hands.

Reading is a great summer hobby because it can be readily done by any age group and is often the perfect time to catch up on reading in general for many people. The library, of course, is free (by means of being supported by taxes, of course) and not only has nearly unlimited amounts of stories to be perused, but offers a good, quiet and a meditative space to do said reading in as well. As a teenager, I loved going right to the "Librarian Recommended" section for a variety of weird and interesting books on topics I had no clue existed, but ended up helping me branch out and find yet one more section by which to visit out of habit every time I'd come to the library. One day I'd read about creating resin jewelry at home, the next I'd read about ways to tie thousands of different kinds of knots; a week later, I'd be reading about Japanese woodblock printing. Anything and everything was fair game, and every week coming to the library was a magical experience because of that.

As an introvert, reading is up there amongst my favorite hobbies, but for those who love reading but find it to be isolating as a continual hobby, a good way to still stay connected with people can likewise be found at the library in the form of book groups that meet weekly or bi-weekly, but utilizing online services such as a Goodreads and other reading forums are ways to stay connected to people'"while being able to fawn and muse over the latest novel you've completed at the same time. E-readers give people libraries at their hands, but are by no means necessary to enjoy reading in general and are merely an added method by which to read. Books and e-readers alike offer a tangible portability that hobbies like gardening and sewing may not readily afford, and can be taken wherever with little, if any, fuss. While I've yet to make the full leap into trying an actual e-reader, thought I've read a few books so far on my phone, but nothing beats curling up in the sun with a good book.