Forming Characters: How Reading Shapes Us

Abstract

This research project seeks to address a gap in reading research – the experience of the solitary reader. Through a literature review and 10 qualitative interviews with students at Dalhousie University and University of Kings College, in Halifax, Nova Scotia I worked to further understand the deeply personal and often variable experience of reading alone. My research has revealed that experiences of reading greatly inform readers’ everyday lives and social interactions. I claim that reading, even when it is solitary, is deeply relational and social, as readers navigate between the world of books and the real world by “tapping in and out” of the world around them through the three E’s: Empathy, Escape, and Education.