National Book Lovers Day

If you read regularly, you're two and a half times less likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's or dementia. If you're a fiction lover, you're more likely be empathetic to others. Reading has been found to reduce stress up to 68%, outranking even listening to music (which came in at 61%).

Sometimes it's frustrating to be a book-lover. You just want to explain how Shakespeare, or George R.R. Martin, or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie perfectly encapsulates all of your feelings about a particular political issue, but other people don't seem to get it. That's OK, book-lovers. Your ability to see how literature reflects real life and visa versa is actually a skill, and you're not nuts to think that books might help you better understand the real world. Fiction does make you more empathetic, after all.