The “Reading Pyramid” provides five categories of reading.  Perhaps it will be helpful for you.

Some people reading this post will know that I am a fan of Wendell Berry. Our 2011 catalog  front cover included one of my favorite Berry quotes, “the significance (and ultimately the quality) of the work we do is determined by our understanding of the story in which we are taking part.”

So I was pleased to see the following beautifully worded summary of Berry’s influence (and reading good fiction) -

I wasn’t intellectually persuaded by Mr. Berry. Rather my heart was reordered. He helped me to love that which I had previously found unloveable. And I knew, on some deep level, that all of the trappings of modernity, that which I had held to be superior, were really the cause of all my feelings of isolation and alienation and fragmentation. At last I had discovered what my soul was missing. And I was faced with the great irony that my whole life I had been celebrating the death of the very things that were, in fact, life.  Angelina Stanford

It’s true too… if you read Berry, you will be changed. What’s more, read any good fiction and it will shape your heart. Well, any fiction will shape your heart; that’s why you should read good fiction. The first time I read Wendell Berry was the winter of 2009/10 when I innocently picked up a copy of Jayber Crow from downtown Lincoln’s Bennet Martin Library. To call the book’s effect on my thought “seismic” would be to understate the point, but it’s the best approximation I can offer. He will reorder your heart, mind, and imagination. Read him. Jake Meador

For more information on Wendell Berry see here and here. We can special order any Wendell Berry books. Mention this blog post and we’ll give you 20% off.

Prof Keith Topping of Dundee University who completed the What Kids Are Reading study carried out by Dundee University’s says,

“Reading for pleasure is again moving centre stage. Education policy since the 2010 (British) election has focused on the mechanisms of learning to read, in particular the promotion of systematic synthetic phonics.

“Now politicians are increasingly identifying the importance of children’s reading which engages their hearts, minds and imaginations in a way in which nothing else can.”

Schools minister Nick Gibb said: “Schools and parents both have an important part to play in introducing children to ever more challenging novels.

“I firmly believe that once children experience the rewards of reading a wide range of books they will go on to develop a lifelong love of reading.”

Read more here.