Fiction Book Reading and Wellbeing: A Qualitative Investigation Across the Lifespan, 2023-2024

This project aimed to examine readers’ perspectives of the relationship between their fiction book reading and wellbeing, focusing on three wellbeing concepts (positive affect, connection, personal growth) to gain depth of understanding into these. In addition, the social contexts of their reading experiences were also examined. The study took a lifespan approach, through individual interviews (total n = 78) with children (n = 24, aged 9-11), young people (n = 19, aged 15-17), adults (n = 20, aged 31-46) and older adults (n = 15 aged 63-83). More details of the project, including outputs to date, can be found here: https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/literacylab/previous-projects/readwell/