This is one of life's greatest pleasures, whether you are lost in the storyline for a novel or in the installation instructions for crank and bottom bracket on your full suspension mountain bike. It is to stimulate the imagination and catapult the thinker into worlds of fantasy and invention , when they are figuring out the geography of the spaceships in an Iain M Banks novel or designing a way to remove the crank without the use of a crank puller.
Imagination is the key.
Anyone who has taught in schools will have realised that the first way to bring about learning is to engage a child's imagination. Without imagination it is difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to grasp a new concept, learn a new skill or appreciate somebody else's point of view. Reading is crucial to this. Through reading, the imagination is set in action, as it is almost impossible to read a text without seeing pictures, hearing sounds, sensing atmospheres and feeling emotions. Reading is harder work than watching a film, which is why, often, it is regarded as inferior.