While I’m not discrediting the internet as a fabulous source of information, let’s not overlook books…and not just as a source for supplying answers to specific questions, but for generally informing us.
Yes, you can google a topic, or ask a question on Ask.com, or even elicit Siri’s help in looking up answers to questions or providing information on a specific topic, and much of the time you’ll get your answer or your info quickly. But there’s more to informing ourselves, more to learning, than getting the answers to specific questions.
When you read a book—at least, a nonfiction book—there is a world of information laid out before you. You get answers to questions you never thought to ask. You learn so much!
It might be a how-to book, but it needn’t necessarily be. It could be a book about science, or history, or modern warfare, philosophy or biography, or a travelogue. Or something else entirely. I recently finished reading a book about religion and now am reading a book on human bones that a friend recommended. You can read all kinds of odd facts, useful facts, and just-plain-interesting facts in the course of your reading a book. Books have it all over the internet in that respect.
What have YOU learned from a book lately?