It’s common to see reading fiction as frivolous, especially when compared to reading nonfiction. Articles, news and essays give you hard facts, real events and applicable knowledge. Fiction is, well, fiction. It’s make-believe. Entertainment.

But that doesn’t explain the post-novel insights I’m so often overcome by that leave me mulling over a story for days. The realisation of how things that seems black and white now were not always that way, after reading about Nazi Germany in The Women in the Castle, the awe of early methods of child-bearing after reading birthing scenes from The Red Tent, the understanding of how trauma can push a virtuous person to depravity in The Map of Love.

I finally realised that fiction is not an escape from reality. It is the most immersive way to truly understand reality. Read on to find out how…

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