“Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.”–Helen Keller
Literature is the base of our culture. In fact, it has been documented as early as 2600 BCE (Before Common Era), which means that people have been trying to teach and learn different aspects of life through writing for over 4,500 years. People can learn many things through the miracle of literature, anything from cooking, history or even just some good old-fashion fiction.
While I think that literature is an amazing aspect of our everyday lives, some people disagree. Some people think that other aspects of our culture are taking over/replacing literature. They would rather watch the movie instead of reading the book, or they will pick up Cliffs Notes instead of a classic novel. Now don’t get me wrong, I think that Cliffs Notes can help you to understand a book, but it will never replace the novel.
So far I have been talking about how literature contributes to our society, but now I am going to talk about how it affects my life. Very few things can make me as happy as I get when I am reading, maybe some sunflowers, or a really rainy thundering night. But it’s a rare occurrence when all three can happen at the same time. Those nights are when I feel the happiest, when I have the pleasure of looking at the words of literary geniuses and smelling the sweetness of some sunflowers and listening the beauty of thunder and raindrops hitting the roof. Those nights are the memories I cherish the most. The nights where I am alone but I am not lonely because I feel comfort in the books.
Growing up I learned to read when I was three, and this allowed me to read multiple books every night until I was old enough to read larger and more difficult books. Even as my reading level grew I continued with the tradition of reading every night. So for me literature is not just an escape from my crazy life, but a reminder of my childhood when life was a little easier. As a kid you do not have to worry about whether or not you look pretty, and you do not have to deal with emotional pain because you don’t truly understand what is happening. Yet even as a young adult, I find that when I don’t want to deal with all the insanity I can just retreat into an easier time.

-Emily