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Key points
- Novels allow readers to grapple with some of life’s biggest challenges from the point of view of fictional characters.
- Reading fiction, neurologically speaking, increases one's knowledge, broadens one's attitudes, and enhances empathic skills.
- Better brains lead to stronger hearts, more flexible thinking, and thus more compassionate action.
When we read fiction, neurologically speaking, we increase our knowledge, broaden our attitudes, and enhance our skills for understanding ourselves and for feeling empathy for others. Reading trains our brains to work more efficiently, helps us process information more quickly, and sharpens memory. Better brains lead to stronger hearts, more flexible thinking, and thus more compassionate action. Countless studies about the vicarious power of story confirm what every writer already knows: The novel is an unequaled medium for the exploration of human social and emotional life too.
Without a doubt, there are endless reasons to read fiction. We read to learn about things we don’t understand. We read to imagine lives unlike our own. Or to commiserate with lives exactly like the ones we are living.
As a school and family counselor as well as a novelist, it’s my hope that every facet of my work creates opportunities for thoughtful conversation around the relationship issues we find most difficult to talk about. Fiction is a powerful vehicle for examining shared experiences through personal stories. James Joyce once said, “In the particular is contained the universe.”
We live in uncertain times. Yet exploring our fears and insecurities requires energy and insight—and in order to reflect deeply, we need to feel safe to do so. Reading fiction allows readers to do all of this work at a remove. When you explore the mental health issues in children, or the impact of addiction on marriage, in a high-stakes, fast-paced novel, you can learn so much about what you think and how you feel about the subject matter, as well as the way it may play out in your life.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), more than four percent of all adults endure mental illnesses classified as serious. The number burgeons when you add in episodic mental illness, and diagnostic mental health issues in children and teens. I don’t know anyone—family, friend, or colleague—who doesn’t love someone who contends with the most prevalent of mental health issues: depression or anxiety.
These are scary numbers, to be sure. And while there are definite benefits to reading nonfiction about mental health, I believe reading novels with these themes provides readers with a unique opportunity to get inside the experience emotionally, where perspectives can be challenged, and where compassion can be found.
The novels I love most allow readers to grapple with some of life’s biggest challenges from the point of view of fictional characters who feel real, and who make choices I can relate to. Well-crafted stories don’t make difficult questions easier to answer, just easier to ponder.
Recommended Novels
All the Children are Home by Patry Francis [Long-term impact of trauma]
Tides by Sara Freeman [Grief after loss of a child]
Bright Burning Things by Lisa Harding [Addiction and motherhood]
I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb [Schizophrenia]
The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb [Aftermath of shooting violence]
Everything Here is Beautiful by Mira Lee [Mental illness and siblings]
The Good Son by Jacquelyn Mitchard [Parenting an incarcerated child]
The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka [The dementia experience for family members and friends]
The Need by Helen Phillips [Postpartum depression]
Disgruntled by Ansali Solomon [Coming of age and belonging]
Machine by Susan Steinberg [Adolescent trauma after an accident]
