'Reading is thinking with someone else's brain' — Schopenhauer

The definition above comes the closest yet to helping me understand why, ever since I was a boy, reading has been — by far — my single most favorite thing to do.

And it's legal.

How can something so wonderful not be forbidden?

It flies in the face of everything contributing to the crushing of the individual, which today masquerades as modernity.

I am reminded of Jeanette Winterson's remark about her mother's unhappiness at her constant, compulsive reading, to wit: "The trouble with books is that you can't tell by looking what's inside them."

Precisely.