AUTHOR'S CORNER:

THE MAGICAL WORLD OF BOOKS

They say that literature is dead; they say that young kids don't read any more, all they do is sit in front of the computer and Facebook or twitter each other!  Films and computer games are the main form of entertainment....the writer is dead!!  WRONG!

The thing that distinguishes books from any other form of entertainment is that unlike any other visual entertainment, which might be two dimensional, or three dimensional (if you happen to go to theatre or have 3D glasses) books are four dimensional, five, six, infinite dimensions, because with books the one crucial difference is they are not limited to one person's vision!  For example, whilst a film producer might make the heroin tall, sexy, dark/fair or even ethnic.  whilst a theatre production will present you with a cast of actors which look a certain way, or a computer game may come up with graphics that portray an image, books give each and every individual reader the power to see, visualise and imagine and feel in exactly the way their minds deem fit!  In other words; each book will be imagined, viewed, understood and felt in a slightly different way each time a different person reads it!  Now multiply that by the population on the planet!  See the magic one book is capable of?  

More so, what a book will evoke in one reader, may not be the exact same feeling in another person, in other words a book is multi-dimensional because we are all different!  I may imagine my hero to be tall and slender, someone else may imagine him tall and slim but with a squarer jaw, or floppy hair, or a thinner mouth!  As is the same for the surroundings of the characters, the writer may describe their surroundings as a quaint town, I may see a small town in the English countryside, someone else's imagination may conjure up a seaside town, or a Hansel and Gretel picturesque northern European village!  No character is the same for two people, no scenery is identical!  The magic and power of the imagination is far more spectacular than any Hollywood film or theatre production!  

In addition, one can see a film in a day, go to the theatre for the evening, play a computer game for a few hours, but a book is read over a few weeks and therefore engages the reader's senses and imagination for far longer!  You live the moment as you are reading it, totally engrossed in what your mind is imagining, therefore you feel it more.  You leave the book to go to work, sleep or do other chores, and there is a niggling feeling to read more and see what else the story has to offer, so already you are thinking about it, the last chapter echoes in your mind, you have a yearning to get back to your reading! 

If you are engrossed enough in the book, you become the heroin/hero, you too feel the pain, the love, the tragedy and the excitement your heroin/hero is feeling.  Not only is your imagination awakened, but your senses are now on fire!  

Book are limitless when it comes to describing human emotions and behaviour, where as films are not; there is only so many emotions an actor can portray in one scene!  There is a time limit on films, therefore the entirety of the book can never be accurately portrayed in any adaptation film!  

Books are explosion of colours, human condition, behaviour, feelings and all that is in between!  Shakespeare's writing, for example, how he explored human behaviour and executed the human mind effortlessly, his Othello, his Romeo, his Macbeth!  Charles Dickens' Oliver, Agatha Christie''s Poirot!  Fay Weldon's She Devil, Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper!  All those books I have found much more enjoyable in reading than in film form!

So if you think books are a thing of the past, if you think technology is so far advanced that reading is a mere primitive pastime, and that moving images are the future that awaits our youngsters.  Think again....the book will never ever die!  And yes, dear readers, our libraries will re-open once again!