Books... I think that we can't live without them. I believe that books stay with us for all our life. When I was a child my parents read them to me. I was happy to listen to the stories and tales. I learned a lot of interesting things from books. I remember thtat I liked thick books. Later I've learnt to read myself. I like to read books about animals, nature and children. I like to get presents on my birthday. I am happy if it is a book. It doesn't matter what kind of book it is. I like to read almost all books. If I have spare time, I spend it with my favourite book. When I was fifteen I was fond of reading too. But I preferred to read books about travels. I travelled with the heroes of the stories. I saw many interesting places and learned a lot of important facts about other countries and people. Now I like to read books about science. You can learn a lot from books. I am sure that books play a very important role in my life. Our family has got many books. All the members of our family buy books and read them. My mother says that books help us in our self-education. In ancient times books were written by hand. It was difficult to write a book with a pen. Then printing came into our life. Printing played an important role in the development of literature and culture. Now there are a lot of books in the shops, there are many books in our homes. But it is expensive to buy all the books we want to read. That's why we can read books in public libraries. There are many problems in our life and sometimes it is difficult to solve them. I think that books can help us in it. Last year I read a very interesting book titled "An American Tragedy" by Theodore Dreiser. This novel was published at the beginning of the 20th century. The novel describes the tragic fate of a boy and a girl, Clyde and Roberta by name. It is a sad story. This novel was written many years ago, but it is still popular nowadays. Books must be our friends during all our life.