You’ve probably heard of people who don’t read for pleasure. People who read strictly out of necessity. To gain information or instruction. People who insist there’s no point in spending precious time on stories about characters who aren’t even “real.”

I remember when I learned such a malady existed. It was a staggering moment in elementary school when a fellow student casually mentioned he didn’t read.

It gave me something like the feeling I’d had while lying on the living room floor during a boring grown-up movie my parents were watching. One of the characters, upon being asked what he would like to drink, answered, “I don’t drink.”

That got my attention. I didn’t understand how it was possible for a person to live if he didn’t drink.

So it was with the kid at school. I couldn’t fathom it. Not read? It was as if he’d said he didn’t breathe.

I learned, as with the case of the movie teetotaler, there was a reasonable explanation. My young friend wasn’t saying he didn’t read at all, only that he didn’t read anything for pleasure. He limited himself to the bare necessities of literary hydration. Reading, for him, consisted of compulsory assignments. A pile of school books. A sentence of sentences. Not something a person would choose to do in his free time.

I’m pretty sure, since you’ve chosen to hang out with me, that’s not your story. I’m pretty sure you enjoy carving out moments in your afternoons or evenings or weekends to spend with a good tale. But I’m wondering if, like me, you find it increasingly difficult to justify the time when there is so much to do. And so many compulsory reading assignments required of you just to function in and understand all the important things going on in the “real” world.

If so, I hope this little interview with my oldest daughter might put that struggle to rest and send you back to your reading corner confident that your fiction habit is not only pleasurable but also highly beneficial.

Ashly, a middle school English teacher and mother to two adorable and precocious children under nine, is also an avid reader. So, as part of an assignment for a course I was taking, I asked her a few questions about her fiction habits.

 

ME: Why do you read fiction?

 

ASHLY: Really, I like stories. And I think my favorite thing about reading fiction is just being taken away from

my life and put into a different experience and a different world. I think the greatest thing about fiction is that

it teaches empathy and understanding of other people’s experiences because it shows you something new that

you can relate to. Because humans are humans (or there are human qualities in everything that’s written about

even if your subjects aren’t human).

 

I read more fiction, I think, because I read to fall asleep at night. Nothing settles my mind or takes me out of my

own cycle of thinking about things than reading someone else’s story. I can do the same thing with story-based

fiction, like history or memoir. But if it’s something like a parenting book or any kind of informational book,

then I’m thinking too much. I need fiction to take me out of my own head and let me fall asleep at night.

 

ME: Where do you go when looking for your next read?

 

ASHLY: I enjoy The New Yorker and will often look up the synopses of books mentioned there. If I like a short

story published in the magazine, I’ll look up the author and find many of those authors also have novels.

 

A lot of people on Instagram will post about five or so of their favorite recent reads, so I get a lot of

recommendations that way and also from friends. My friend Kelly is always posting books she’s read and liked. I

have a few other teacher friends who will post when they finish a book they really like. I’m also in a book club so

sometimes the book I’m reading is because somebody put its title in the hat.

 

It didn’t come up in that conversation, but I do know, like me, Ashly enjoys rereading her personal favorites. Depending on my mood or circumstances, I like to revisit particular fictional friends. I like knowing what I can expect. There’s something comforting in spending time with people whose stories and character arcs haven’t changed in the interim. Folks who, paradoxically, sometimes show me ways I’ve changed since last we met.

I do love the excitement of opening a new book with the possibility of discovering new worlds. But between times, revisiting old literary friends does something settling in my soul. It’s like stretching out under a tree in my own yard.

I know September is, for many of us, a busy season. A time to get schoolbooks and school schedules and school activities in order.

But maybe this transition from summer to autumn is also a time to put on a light jacket, stretch out under a shady tree and open a book. A time to remember what it is to live in another world for a while and see life in new ways. Or a time to visit old worlds and discover how you yourself have become newer.

Here are just a few of the titles I like to revisit: The Anne of Green Gables books, Gone with the Wind, Peace Like a River, Miss Benson’s Beetle, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, The Scent of Water, The Far Pavilions, Christy, A Wrinkle in Time, The Dean’s Watch, The Chronicles of Narnia, Still Life (the one by Christa Parrish), All Creatures Great and Small 

What keeps you reading fiction (or do you stick to non-fiction)?

Do you see some mutual friends in my list?

What stories do you like to revisit from time to time?

Do you like to reread favorites, or do you always reach for something new?

What books are keeping you company this September? I’d love to know.