by Virginia Woolf It is simple enough to say that since books have classes-fiction, biography, poetry-we should separate them and take from each what it is right that each should give us. Yet few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own pre judices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning. Do not dictate to your author try to become him. Be his fellow-worker and accomplice. If you hang back, and reserve and criticise at first, you are preventing yourself from getting the fullest possible value from what you read But if you open your mind as widely as possible, then signs and hints of almost imperceptible fineness, from the twist and turn of the first sentences, will bring you into the presence of a human being unlike any other. Steep yourself in this, acquaint yourself with this, and soon you will find that your author is giving you, or attempting to give you, something far more definite. The thirty-two chapters of a novel-if we consider how to read a novel first -are an attempt to make something as formed and controlled as a building: but words are more impalpable than bricks reading is a longer and more complicated process than seeing. Perhaps the quickest way to understand the elements of what a novelist is doing is not to read but to write; to make your own experiment with the dangers and difficulties of words. Recall, then, some event that has left a distinct impression on you-how at the corner of the street, perhaps, you passed two people talking. a tree shook an electric light danced the tone of the talk was comic, but also tragic; a whole vision, an entire conception, seemed contained in that moment. But when you at tempt to reconstruct it in words, you will find that it breaks into a thousand confliction impressions. Some must be subdued others emphasised; in the process you will lose, probably, all grasp upon the emotion itself. Then turn from your blurred and littered pages to the opening pages of some great novelist -Defoe, Jane Austen, Hardy. Now you will be better able to appreciate their mastery The Delights of Books Books are to mankind what memory is to the individual. They contain the history of our race, the discoveries we have made the accumulated knowledge and experience of ages; they picture for us the marvels and beauties of nature: help us in our difficulties, comfort us in sorrow and in suffering store our minds with ideas, fill them with good and happy thoughts, and lift us out of and above ourselves When we read we may transport ourselves to the mountains or the seashore, and visit the most beautiful parts of the earth, without fatigue, inconvenience, or expense. Many of those who have had I that this world can give, have told us they owed much of their purest happiness to books. Macaulay, aBritainhistorian, writer and statesman, had wealth and fame, rank and power, and yet he his biography that he owed the happiest hours of his life to books. He says :If any one would make me the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces, gardens, fine dinners, wines and coaches, and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that i should not read books I would not be a king. I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading. Books, indeed, endow us with a whole enchanted palace of thoughts. In one way they give us even more vivid idea than the actual reality, just as reflections are often more beautiful than real nature Without stirring from our firesides we may roam to the most remote regions of the earth. Science, art, literature, philosophy, all that man has thought, all that man has done, theby Virginia Woolf It is simple enough to say that since books have classes—fiction, biography, poetry—we should separate them and take from each what it is right that each should give us. Yet few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning. Do not dictate to your author; try to become him. Be his fellow-worker and accomplice. If you hang back, and reserve and criticise at first, you are preventing yourself from getting the fullest possible value from what you read. But if you open your mind as widely as possible, then signs and hints of almost imperceptible fineness, from the twist and turn of the first sentences, will bring you into the presence of a human being unlike any other. Steep yourself in this, acquaint yourself with this, and soon you will find that your author is giving you, or attempting to give you, something far more definite.  The thirty-two chapters of a novel—if we consider how to read a novel first —are an attempt to make something as formed and controlled as a building; but words are more impalpable than bricks; reading is a longer and more complicated process than seeing. Perhaps the quickest way to understand the elements of what a novelist is doing is not to read, but to write; to make your own experiment with the dangers and difficulties of words. Recall, then, some event that has left a distinct impression on you—how at the corner of the street, perhaps, you passed two people talking. A tree shook; an electric light danced; the tone of the talk was comic, but also tragic; a whole vision, an entire conception, seemed contained in that moment. But when you attempt to reconstruct it in words, you will find that it breaks into a thousand confliction impressions. Some must be subdued; others emphasised; in the process you will lose, probably, all grasp upon the emotion itself. Then turn from your blurred and littered pages to the opening pages of some great novelist —Defoe, Jane Austen, Hardy. Now you will be better able to appreciate their mastery...  The Delights of Books Books are to mankind what memory is to the individual. They contain the history of our race, the discoveries we have made, the accumulated knowledge and experience of ages; they picture for us the marvels and beauties of nature; help us in our difficulties, comfort us in sorrow and in suffering, store our minds with ideas, fill them with good and happy thoughts, and lift us out of and above ourselves.  When we read we may transport ourselves to the mountains or the seashore, and visit the most beautiful parts of the earth, without fatigue, inconvenience, or expense. Many of those who have had all that this world can give, have told us they owed much of their purest happiness to books. Macaulay, aBritainhistorian,writer and statesman, had wealth and fame, rank and power, and yet he tells us in his biography that he owed the happiest hours of his life to books. He says: "If any one would make me the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces, gardens, fine dinners, wines and coaches, and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that I should not read books, I would not be a king. I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading."  Books, indeed, endow us with a whole enchanted palace of thoughts. In one way they give us an even more vivid idea than the actual reality, just as reflections are often more beautiful than real nature.  Without stirring from our firesides we may roam to the most remote regions of the earth. Science, art, literature, philosophy, all that man has thought, all that man has done, the