To me, in general, no experience can be more rewarding than reading, and I have read works of every genre with equal enthusiasm - from Dickens to Dan Brown, from Jane Austen to Jeffrey Archer - and works depicting varied subjects, from poetic charm to political chicanery.
But after all my reading excursions, I always have to come back to the olden day classics, like a child to a mother after all the outdoor play with friends.
Relishing the cutting wit and satire of Austen, following the stream of consciousness of the characters that fell from the pen of Woolf, digesting the social realism of Wharton, exploring the vivid, candid rural glimpses given by Hardy, understanding the deep psychological analysis of the creations of Eliot, is like having the soothing, understanding and supportive arm of a friend around the shoulders.
This might be a bit too unnecessarily maudlin to many. But is not the purpose of jotting one's thoughts in a journal to be able to have the complete freedom of being one's true self? Of laying down one's mind in all it's naked eccentricities, strengths and weaknesses without any embellishment?
Therefore, no matter from which quarter the approval or ridicule comes from, it will not stop me from recording on this page, that reading classics, to me, is like gazing out on a sunny, green meadow with yellow buttercups by a serene lake, it's like a peaceful vacation - it's like coming home.
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