Reading for Pleasure(為快樂而讀書)

     Reading for Pleasure

         he first thing I want to insist on is that reading should be enjoyable. Of course, there are many books that we all have to road, either to pass examinations or to acquire information,from which it is impossible to extract enjoyment. We aro reading them for instruction, and the best we can hope is that our need for it will enable us to get through them without todium. Such books wo read with resignation rather than with alacrity. But that is not the sort of roading I have in mind. The books I shall mention in due course will help you neither to get a degree nor to earn your living, they will not teach you to sail a boat or get a stalled motor to run, but they will help you to live more fully. That, however, they cannot do unless you enjoy reading them.

      Every man is his own best critic. Whatever the learned say about a book, however unanimous they are in their praise of it,unless it interests you, it is no business of yours. And you who read are the final judge of the value to you of the book you are reading. We are none of us exactly like everyone else, only rather like, and it would be unreasonable to suppose that the books that have meant a great deal to me should be precisely those that will mean a great deal to you. But they are books that I feel the richer for having read, and I think I should not be quite the man I am if I had not read them. No one is under an obligation to read poetry or fiction or the miscellaneous literature which is classed as belleslettres. He must read them for pleasure, and who can claim that what pleases one man must necessarily please another?

為快樂而讀書

    我想堅(jiān)持的第一點(diǎn)是，閱讀應(yīng)當(dāng)是愉悅的。  自然，我們每一個(gè)人都會為了通過考試，或是為了獲取信息而閱讀大量的書籍。從這樣的閱讀中我們無法獲取快樂。我們讀這些書是為了接受教育。我們最多只能希望自己對這些書籍的需要使得我們在讀完之后不至于感到單調(diào)乏味。這樣的書，我們讀得無可奈何而不是輕松愉快。然而，我心目中的閱讀不屬于這一種。我在下面很快將要提到的那一類書既不能幫助你獲取學(xué)位，也不能幫助你掙錢謀生，更不能教會你駕駛船只或修好出了故障的馬達(dá)，然而，