📖 When is National Read a Book Day 2024

Scientists have discovered how to maintain clarity of mind throughout life: you need to constantly develop your brain. One of the best ways to do this is to read regularly and thoughtfully. Today, people are too busy and are finding less time to read. Some of them are not even able to reply “What is the date of National Read a Book Day 2024?” or haven’t even heard about this special occasion existence.

History

Of course, we understand that it is necessary to explain the historical background of this special occasion, but unfortunately, we haven’t been able to discover who the establisher of this notable date was and why it is kept on September 6 exactly.

According to the specialists’ point of view, the very first celebration of Read a Book Day was kept initially in 2000. The idea came to the librarians’ minds. Those American specialists wanted to encourage the local youngsters to read books more than to watch TV.

Meaning

What does National Read a Book day mean? – Frankly speaking, it is up to you to decide whether this activity is important or not for you. All in all it is difficult to believe in that, but some contemporary people take a book quite rarely.

Appreciating the answer to the question “When is National Read a Book Day in 2024?” scientists from Liverpool University measured the activity of the students’ brain while they were reading the poems of Shakespeare, Eliot, and other famous poets. It is revealed that reading poetry leads the brain into a state of increased excitement, which persists even after the reading is stopped. Particularly intensified zones associated with autobiographical memory. Additionally, the scientists retold the content of the poems “in their own words.” So, reading these retellings had almost no effect on brain activity.

Researchers from the University of Emory in Atlanta conducted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of 12 students who read every day 30 pages of the historical thriller of Robert Harris “Pompeii”. Scanning showed that reading caused increased activity in the left temporal lobe of the cortex associated with speech activity and cognitive abilities in the central gyrus responsible for sensorimotor reactions. And the excitement persisted in these areas and in a while after reading the book. Scientists also found that readers feel the experience of so called “bodily semantization”, when in the process of thinking about an action, the configuration of the inter-neural connections begins to repeat their configuration at the time of this action. For example, thoughts about swimming can lead to the formation of the same interneuronal connections as the physical process of swimming.

Definition

So you have already got the answer to the set question “When is International Read a Book Day 2024?” This year it will be on September 6 and all intelligent people all over the world will get a chance to celebrate this special occasion.

The fact that reading is useful is widely accepted by many as an axiom, but there are many white spots in this statement. Firstly, it is not so obvious at all, because it is very difficult to measure the “usefulness” of reading. Most of the conclusions about the beneficial effects of reading on contemporary man or woman are in fact based on theoretical assumptions than real scientific research. Mistrustful citizens in turn notice that reading fiction does not train any important skills in real life, does not provide important information, and if that develops, it’s just imagination. There are even people who say that reading is not only useless, but on the contrary – it can be harmful, because it “tears” people from reality, immersing them in imaginary worlds, and thereby making it less socially adapted. So the benefit of reading is not obvious after all.

The second important question is the quality of the reading. Intuitively, we assume that reading of love stories will bring you less benefit than the philosophical novels. But to confirm this is really difficult.

Traditions

When is Read a Book Day in 2024, calendar will always remind you in time. But are you ready to celebrate September 6 properly?

Unfortunately, there are no any certain rules or customs, but this is not a problem for those, who are going to be involved in to the keeping.

Of course, it’s much easier to rest, picking up the remote from the TV set or opening the laptop, plunging into the virtual reality of computer games. However, people who read more, have a chance to build a successful career, better relationships in the family, they look younger and live longer.

So what about visiting the nearest bookstore and purchasing something new for you, your family members or friends?

By the way, researchers at Stanford University asked a group of candidates of science for literature to read the novel by Jane Austin, being inside the apparatus of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). At first they read “just like that,” and then they were asked to focus on analyzing the text, as if they would need to make a report at a scientific conference. It was found that analytical, detailed reading requires the performance of a certain complex cognitive function, which is usually not involved. When switching from reading “for pleasure” to “analytical” reading, there is a sharp change in the types of nervous activity in the brain and the nature of the circulation in the brain.

Read a Book Day Facts

As a rule, getting the answer to the question, what day National Read a Book Day in 2024 is, modern men and women are trying to find out something interesting about this type of activity. That is why now we are going to represent you really amazing pieces of information.

Specialists from Oxford University also MRI and found out that reading a book a person activates the same brain areas as in the case of observing the scenes described in the story itself. Professor of the University of Oxford John Stein argues: we are so “accustomed” to what is happening in the novel that the brain reacts to the book in the same way as if we are really experiencing everything described there. In other words, the statement: “The reader lives thousands of lives” – very near the truth.

And in 2008, researchers at Duke University found that reading can be used to treat obesity. They examined 30 girls aged 9 to 13 who were obese. One of them was offered to read the novel “The Saving Lake” – about the girl with excess weight and low self-esteem, which tries to lose weight. The second group read a book where there was no such character, and the third did not read anything at all. As a result, the decrease in body mass index in the first group almost twice exceeded the results of the second and third groups. Scientists have linked this with the influence of reading on the girls’ motivation. The use of reading specific literature was confirmed in other studies.

The team of scientists (mainly from France), under the leadership of Stanislas Dehaene, compared brain activity (with the help of the same MRI) of illiterate people, who learned to read in adulthood and “ordinary”, literate from childhood. It turned out that in a literate man/woman, when recognizing the text, the visual zone of the cerebral cortex begins to work much more intensively, the areas responsible for the processing of sound information are activated, and several other brain centers are simultaneously worked. But not only this characterizes the work of the “literate brain” – even with the perception of only oral information, a literate person begins to work more intensively than an illiterate person, to work a phonological area and include several other zones.