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Why We Read Fiction

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The book I read to research this post was Why We Read Fiction by Lisa Zunshine which is a very good book that I downloaded for free on kindle. This book is a decent length at around 300 pages and explores what attracts people to reading fiction. I think in general fiction is more popular than non-fiction. It does look like the author of this book is very much into the great classic works although she does say she reads a wide variety of different types of litterature. When we read a book we have certain expectations of what should happen. An example is in Mrs Galloway by Virginia Woolf, Mr Galloway visits Clarissa Galloway who is having a party and we are told he is shaking but it is left to us to realise why. Clearly he is shaking with excitement but it could just as easily be the onset of Parkinson’s disease. Obviously if it was the latter we would be told. There is a certain common knowledge develop from life experience and reading other books that develops our ability to understand characters in books. Humor works a little differently in it takes us from one mindset to another and the shock results in us laughing. Although certain things have to be done in a book or we feel let down other things can effectively be changed which adds to our enjoyment of the book. We also try to understand the characters and their motivations for doing things. A fiction book gives you far more information in a short than you could hope to learn from watching someone in real life. Humans find exploring and understanding people quite enjoyable. It is a little like gossiping with neighbours and friends although not necessarily in a bad way. I have a fiction book review blog at http://oldscratbag.com where mostly horror, thrillers and science fiction books are reviewed and it is easily my most popular site. It has about twice as many followers as any of my other blogs. When people follow a blog on WordPress they give them their email address and each time a new post is published they get it sent to their email account which is completely free. I did very much enjoy this book which is on quite an unusual subject and I do recommend it.

 



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