146. Heighten your reading experience

My two favourite art forms are music and literature. Both have the liberating ability of evoking emotion and transporting you to somewhere new. What’s even better I find, is combining the two.

I’m not sure how many people do this but I really enjoy having a song on repeat whilst reading. Obviously the choice of song here is important. ‘Barbie Girl’ would not be the right accompaniment to Harry Potter, say. But every so often you find a song just … clicks.

Recently I finished reading the whole Divergent series. 3 books, 3 days, standard. All the while I had this gem of a song playing in the background. It’s a cover of the 80s classic ‘Everybody wants to rule the world’ and I think it’s perfect and heartbreaking. I also think it’s appropriate for lots of stories. The Hunger Games and Monsters of Men certainly springs to mind.

Anyway hearing this song now is like a portal. It takes me straight back to the world of Divergent. I find it fascinating how our brains can associate something so strongly with music.

 

P.S It shocks me how many people don’t know how to play a YouTube video on repeat so I’ll share it here.

Say you have a YouTube video with URL:

All you need to do is replace the youtube bit with ‘listenonrepeat’ as follows:

https://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=HEskmwV1pMU

Tadaaa!

Over and Out!