Why Do we Read Fiction?

Reading calms me. It brings me the kind of pleasure and joy few things do. Stories are a way for me to recognize other people and myself too. I read all kinds of genres and books and authors according to what I feel I need. There days when i only want comfort reading, and nothing but fantasy will do. Other times I want adventure and I'll read children's books, YA and MG books. I read non-fiction when I want yo find out things, learn about people and places and history.

There are times when I want to just disassociate myself from everything and everyone and dive into a story. Normally I read every day, even if its just a few pages, but when the mood of diving into books is upon me, I want complete solitude. I want a new town, a new house in the woods preferably, or on the water somewhere, and no human company to come between me and the books I wish to read.

These moods descend upon me like a sickness, maybe once or twice a year. I don't look forward to them. in fact, I try to stave them off by reading regularly. I've noticed they take me off my guard when I haven't been writing...or perhaps, I crave the solitude because I haven't been writing...

Reading is like day dreaming. Only better. Much better. It's clearer for one. It's got structure and form. It has a much surer purpose. It is this certainty that we as readers will get somewhere by the end of this journey we have taken with strangers, and will find that they are no longer strangers by its end, that drives us forward towards new books and new authors. If that promise is not fulfilled we wont buy the next book of that author. That has happened to me rarely and I'm grateful for that. Usually I stick with an author I like and will buy their new book without even reading the blurb. the name and the previous books are enough. Every good book is a promise fulfilled.