Can reading literature really help our mental health? This book shows how and why - not by instruction or prescription but by emotion and exploration. Offering case histories of individual readers and reading groups based on the work of The Reader, a charity dedicated to bringing serious literature to neglected communities, the authors showcase how a whole new demographic might get into reading, and in doing so unlock the emotional intelligence and benefits to health and wellbeing which come from our access to written human stories and imagined situations.