Keep calm and read a book

"All great leaders are readers". Do you agree with it? I am completely sure that it is true. Reading gives us food for thought, broadens our horizons and open the world that is between the pages of the book.
What are other reasons that prove reading is important?

• Reading helps us to relax and norishes our bodies and souls. Stress is a major concern for a lot of people. Even if we have a stressful day, a book can easily distract us from our own problems. Reading has ability to calm us down, and dispense peace. 

• Reading helps to reach out to the world. Reading takes us to the places we have never been to. It is a way to get acquainted with people, cultures, customs and traditions. It is a way to experience life.

• Reading develops creativity. Reading books helps us to imagine something we have never thought of before. When we read a novel, or a fairy-tale or whatever we start creating the scenery of it just in front of our eyes. So it's not surprising that plenty of good ideas come to our minds when we have just read a book and it has inspired us.

• Reading is a never-ending friendship. Books never betray but accompany the reader, either sitting alone or travelling. Books help us not only to kill boredom but also to use our time productively rather than wasting it as well as our friends usually do.

• Reading is a key to success. Those who are good readers tend to have progressive social skills. These people are able to mix with others. They can stand their ground.

The reasons are numerous, the benefits are obvious. So next time when you think about playing a computer game or just surfing the Internet on your mobile phone, take a book and plunge yourself into the wonderful world of reading. Here is the list of my "must-read" books that had influence on my life and my way of thinking, choose one and enjoy!

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2. Fahrenheit 451° by Ray Bradbury
3. Animal Farm by George Orwell
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
6. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
7. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
8. 1984 by George Orwell
9. The Catcher in the Rye by Jerome D. Salinger
10. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
11. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
12. Brave New World by Auldous Huxley
13. Hiroshima by John Hersey
14. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
15. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
16. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
17. Don Quihote by Miguel de Servantez
18. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
19. The Diary of a Yong Girl by Anne Frank 
20. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Mariya Remarque
21. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
22. The Lord of the Rings by John R. R. Tolkien
23. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
24. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
25. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by  Robert Louis Stevenson
26. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
27. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
28. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
29. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll
30. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift