in defense of fiction

Five or so years ago, I was explaining to a non-reader friend how hot and bothered I was getting about the release of some new fiction book. Using that pedantic tone that so many male high school science teachers seem to favor, he smirked and told me that he considers reading - in particular fiction reading - to be a waste of time, that whenever he reads fiction he feels a sort of guilt that he isn't using his time in a more meaningful way, and that non-fiction is pretty much the only thing worth an intelligent person's time. (I'm sure you can see why he and I aren't so close anymore.  He's a bit of an ass.)

Anyway, I wish I could have referenced this study at the time, finding “...a positive association between exposure to narrative fiction and social abilities, and the opposite pattern for expository non-fiction." Basically, that the more narrative fiction one reads the better one's social skills, and that those who primarily read expository non-fiction tend to be more socially deficient.  Ha! Take that sucka! 

However, despite my passion and pluck I think I ultimately lost that particular argument for fiction because I had no such study to point to at the time, and he's the sort of person who won't accept the validity of any point without a proper scientific study to back it up.  

Again, he's a science teacher.  (And also a bit of an ass.)