How reading helps the world

When you sit down to read the latest bestselling novel, you might think you're selfishly indulging in one of life’s little pleasures but perhaps you can take credit for helping to create a global community.
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Reading fiction is fun. It helps us escape, arouses us, entertains and educates us. But is it doing us any good?

Novelist and cultural theorist Kwame Anthony Appiah believes that imaginative literature can help us to be better people and help the world to be a better place.

The Ghanian-British thinker – whom Forbes magazine named one of the world’s seven most powerful thinkers in 2009 – argues that spending time in the world of the imagination helps us gain in an insight and understanding into other cultures that any amount of studying facts and figures cannot provide.

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Sarah Adams
About the Author
Sarah Adams is a media, film and television junkie. She is the former deputy editor of ArtsHub Australia and now works in digital communications - telling research stories across multiple platforms - in the higher education sector. Follow her @sezadams