There’s not much you can’t learn from books. Facts are only the easy ones. With enough time (which none of us have) and a great memory, you can learn more than you will ever need to know.

However, it’s not just facts and figures you can learn and understand by reading. If you are a lifelong learner, and open to learning from everyone and everything you encounter, there’s so much more to learn about humans as a species, a family and about yourself.

Story is a great way to learning. Most children’s stories have a theme, a moral, a lesson to learn. So do all stories if we but look for the lesson. One of the most basic and satisfying is that we are more alike than we sometimes want to think. We learn to understand ourselves by watching and listening to others. We can learn how to live and work with those around us by the way story characters interact.

Don’t you love reading a book from which you learn something that you don’t expect. I loved reading Dick Francis for the wide variety of career choices of his characters. I loved learning about the racing industry, of course, glassblowing, selling beads and semiprecious gems, toymaking and so much more.

What do you love learning from books you read?