I found this book to be less about WHY we read fiction than HOW to read fiction in the author's opinion. Books and opinions such as those represented in this book were the reason I dropped English Literature in my second year at university. I could not stand to be told what to think about a book, poem or passage. I found this book very pompous, as if the author was standing atop her soap box. The first person declarations really got on my nerves. It read like a PhD dissertation that had been adapted for the general public by throwing in multitudes of bracketed phrases to 'translate' her heady words. Sections relating to autism made me angry because it assumed that an autistic brain was a primitive brain, incapable of emotion or understanding and thus could be used as good counterbalance for Theory of Mind. Not that I am an expert, but clearly the author does not know much about the autism spectrum and I was surprised she wrote this book in 2006 and not 1880. If my e-reader was not expensive, I would have thrown it out a window. I did finish the book, however my reading of it reminded me of the Simpsons episode where Bart was trying to train Santa's Little Helper..."blah blah, blah blah blah".

Personally, I read fiction for the simple purpose of escapism, and I imagine so does most of the rest of the world. No stars.

I always wondered why we, readers, tolerate fiction - it's all made up isn't it? Why bother? Why are we entertained? Why not stick to non-fiction? This book, drawing on research from the field of cognitive science, provides some clues as to why our brains enjoy and thrive on fictional narratives.
It doesn't answer all the questions - its focus is on how the reading brain creates truth from the characters depicted, rather then the story or plot per se (that would be a whole other book). Highly academic but accessible and rewarding if you take your time. ( )