Book reading as a hobby

            My hobby of reading books started while I was waiting for my entrance test results to join engineering program. There was one novel 'The Hound of Baskervilles' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which impressed me a lot in my school days. So, I collected all short stories and novels by him and started reading them. The stories about Sherlock Holmes' cases were so good that I completed the entire collection in 2 months (Believe me!! there are 1200 short stories and 4 novels of Sherlock holmes). Then, I started reading the works of Agatha Christie, Sidney Sheldon, Jeffrey Archer, Paulo Coelho, etc. I have also read works of Indian authors such as Jhumpa Lahari, Chetan Bhagat, and Shoba dey. 

           In the early days, I used to keep a note of words that I couldn't understand, search them in dictionary and try to frame a sentence with those new words. In this way, I learnt many new words and improved my vocabulary. I had to give a break to my hobby after I joined college  as I couldn't spare much time for reading. I could take up my hobby again after I moved to a new job in Chennai. I took up membership in a library and read different kind of books.

I feel, everyone can improve their communication skills by just starting with a hobby like reading books and then try to develop other areas like speaking, grammar, and writing.