Books always played a very prominent role in my life. Not just for the pure satisfaction of reading but as a source of knowledge, opening the mind to both, old and new ideas and inspiring future travel adventures. Schools present and encourage a narrow-minded view of the surrounding world, they only teach us to obey rules, preparing us to live life as a part of one big soulless machine. Life’s pleasures are supposed to consist of watching television (where programs will even prompt you when you’re supposed to laugh), go to sports matches and eat hamburgers. Be fat and happy, and never devote any time to thinking, because this is a dangerous activity. In addition we are fed with stories about the dangers of the life, things like terrorism and other criminal activity, bird flu, swine flu – anything to keep you quiet and constantly afraid. We have to abandon this fear and escapism, and I think one way we can become real thinking humans is to read books. It is one of the few forms of entertainment not affected so much by commercial culture. We can read what we want and when we want. Every day I can sink into chair, take out a pipe and for a couple of hours forget about the surrounding world. It's hard to remember all the books, which I have enjoyed, but some of them are still deep in my memory:
If I recall correctly, the first books which I read were: "Adventures of Sindbad Sailor" by Lesmian, "Heart" by Amicis, and "The Children of Noisy Village" by Lindgren
These books were followed by "With Fire and Sword","The Deluge","Fire in the Steppe" by Sienkiewicz and "The Paul Street Boys" by Molnar. I also enjoyed the adventures of Tomek Wilmowski in the adventure series by Szklarski, "The Lost World" by Doyle, "Winnetou" by Karl May and all books by Verne. Later it is harder to remember, but some of them are still memorable: "Nausea","The Age of Reason" by Sartre, "The Fall", "The Stranger" by Camus, "Arch of Triumph" by Remarque, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Wilde and books by Hemingway, Steinbeck, Conrad, Proust, Dostoyevsky, Gombrowicz, Hlasko....
I am incuding a list of recently read books.