Oh, definately! I've been reading since 2, and even though I know that my teachers don't like me to, I have a habit of reading books long before we read them in school. 1984, for example, I read 2 years back, we're studying it next year.
Reading really is a good thing for me, especially when it's books I like. Mostly Carl Hiassen books, J.K. Rowling, Douglas Adams. Ray Bradbury is one of my favorites, I don't know if you've ever read "The Martian Chronicles," that book affected me big time, especially the chapter where he describes the decimated city in Northern California. I also like utopia-type novels, such as Brave New World and, obviously, Utopia.
There are also those books that you find and they sound interesting, but that author never shows up again. I read one book last summer called "The Adventures of the Blue Avenger," which sounds very simple and kiddy, but it's a very thick book, very deep, very mature, and it explains how an author of something can be sucked in by their own work. The story explains how a guy with mild autism is troubled so much by his own life that he begins to draw little comics and write little stories about a hero called The Blue Avenger, and after a while, he begins to lose contact with the real world as he falls into the world he created and eventually, thinks he himself is The Blue Avenger. It really goes into the mind of an author, and that hits me personally because I write A LOT and I know how it feels to fall into your own world.
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