text: i think the act of reading imbues the reader with a sensitivity toward the outside world that people who don t read can sometimes lack i know it seems like a contradiction in terms after all reading is such a solitary internalizing act that it appears to represent a disengagement from day to day life but reading and particularly the reading of fiction encourages us to view the world in new and challenging ways it allows us to inhabit the consciousness of another which is a precursor to empathy and empathy is for me one of the marks of a decent human being