20 Reasons Book Nerds Lead a Better Life

William Styron once said, “You live several lives while reading…and those lives are awesome.” Ok, so he might not have said that last part, but it’s still perfectly true. Our lives are awesome. Book nerds get to experience so much more than reality has to offer. It’s like we’re multitasking at life!
What’s more, books make the life we actually live so much better. Nonreaders don’t get to experience pirates on their morning commute, or corset-busting romance in the doctor’s office, or postapocalyptic survival while waiting to board a plane. In fact, nonreaders are forced to sit around with only their thoughts for company, wondering if they turned off the stove or whether they need an oil change.  It’s sad, but true.
This fact alone shows that book nerds lead a better life. But if there’s a nonreader in your life who needs more convincing, here are 20 additional reasons:
1. We’re able to entertain ourselves for hours on end.
2. We’re easy (and inexpensive) to shop for.
3. We get to visit faraway places without leaving our couches.
4. We get to travel backwards and forwards in time, also without leaving our couches.
5. We are less likely to get sun damage when we’re at the beach, because we always have our face in a book. (Of course, we still wear plenty of sunscreen.)
6. We can avoid awkward encounters with coworkers, exes, and people we went to high school with, just by ducking behind our book.
7. We like big words and we cannot lie.
8. We give our pets cool literary names, instead of names like “Fluffy” or “Muffin” or “Fluffy Muffin.”
9. When we see our favorite authors on the street, we don’t have to fight screaming fans to meet them.
10. In fact, even when we see famous authors at events and book signings, there’s very little screaming. Everyone is quite dignified.
11. We consider every bookstore a world of untold treasures.
12. We burn more calories because we’re always lugging books around, and walking up and down every aisle in the bookstore.
13. We find everyone we meet endlessly interesting, because we like to imagine what they’d be like if they were characters in a book.
14. We’re content even when there’s no wifi.
15. We’re great at trivia quizzes because we’ve absorbed random facts from all the books we’ve read.
16. We can escape reality whenever we feel like it, which is usually on crowded trains, delayed planes, bad dates…
17. People think we’re wise because we can think of the perfect literary quote for every occasion.
18. We don’t sweat the small stuff in life, because we’re so distracted by our novels we just forget all about it.
19. We know how to leave work at work. Those TPS reports can wait until Monday, but we need to find out what happens in our novel now.
20. We don’t judge anything—books, people, taco trucks—by their cover.
How does being a book nerd help you lead a better life?