The science of reading seems to me about as well developed and researched as the science of extracting gold from the stone of a mango, so any sniff of extra study or information is welcome.

What’s your brain doing when you read a story? Have a look at this article and you might find some suggestion of an answer.

The gist of it is in the first couple of paragraphs:

“Any avid reader knows the power of a book to transport you into another world… Part of the reason we get lost in these imaginary worlds might be because our brains effectively simulate the events of the book in the same way they process events in the real world, a new study suggests.”

Now, I usually don’t like articles jumping to conclusions about scientific studies, but let’s move past that for now. I want to jump to my own conclusion.

Does this study show us that our brains process fiction and non-fiction very differently? Or rather, narrative and facts. (Because some stories might be true, remember.)

That seems to make sense to me, but I think it’s pretty important that we know more about this. I’m always being asked about getting people to read – especially boys. One of the (many) points in the discussion is that lots of boys enjoy non-fiction. I used to read the Book of World Records avidly, and I pored for hours over books of cricket statistics. (I’m not ashamed. Maybe I should be. But I’m not.)

But presumably, if our brains process reading facts and narratives differently, then our brains are developing differently depending on what sort of thing we read. Lots of kids (again, especially boys) are encouraged to read non-fiction because otherwise they wouldn’t be reading anything at all. That’s great, of course – reading anything is better than reading nothing. And more fun. But does this study place even more importance on getting everybody to read fiction?

In the past I’ve spoken at length about the importance of fiction, but without any neurological evidence to back it up. I think there’s a particular kind of intelligence and understanding that grows with reading fiction. I’ll go on about it another day. I even have a name for it, but I’m not going to tell you what it is now. I’ll wait until you’ve all chipped in with your thoughts and I’ve come back from my holiday.

And yes, it is my third holiday of the Summer.

(PS You really can get traces of gold from mango stones, by the way. And I encourage you to try it.)

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brains, Joe Craig, reading, science