The key to a healthier lifestyle involves reading popular literature according to studies that indicate reading reduces stress.  When individuals read they relax and become involved with the story. Reading generates a sense of well being.  Catherine Ross, Professor of Library and Information Science at the University of Western Ontario, Canada has conducted a study of readers’ responses to reading popular fiction.  The narrative or story reveals information that readers process and evaluate.  Readers identify with the characters represented in the story by empathizing with situations or physical handicaps characters may experience.  Readers also compare events or situations and how the characters cope with the challenges depicted in the story with their own personal experiences, thereby generating thoughts that range from distain to admiration for the attributes of the characters and their respective behaviors. 

Connie Van Fleet, Associate Professor of the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Oklahoma identifies, “popular literature as the textual representation of popular culture” (64). Van Fleet refers to research and studies that reflect the positive influence popular fiction has on the reader, “Popular fiction may entertain and amuse, excite the imagination, reduce mental and physical stress, give a sense of order or control, validate ideas or motions, or meet social needs of belonging and understanding” (68).  The reading experience of popular literature is reflective of ideas, themes, and situations within popular culture that people want to read about. 

According to Marc Aronson, the reader enters the story through the processing of words. He points out that words, language, and story are what generate emotion, involve the intellect, and engage the listener or reader (85). Aronson is an editorial director and vice president of non fiction content development at Carus Publishing.  It is through the story that readers identify with literary characters and situations while safely tucked away in their bedrooms, school classrooms, or libraries. Each reader brings to the story their own background knowledge and experiences. Aronson’s approach to story and the relationship to the reader provide the framework for both Ross’s study and Van Fleet’s review of studies: readers find information that helps them in their lives, therefore providing a coping strategy, which in turn reduces the stress in their lives.

Results of Jude Gallik’s study on the relationship existing between academic achievement and the time spent in recreational reading indicate that a relationship does exist between reading for pleasure and academic achievement. Gallik reports that, “the positive relationship between cumulative grade-point average and time spent in recreational reading could indicate that an individual has the ability for sustained attention and concentration necessary for academic success” (488).  The implications of Gallik’s study could support that reading for pleasure reduces stress in students’ lives so that academic achievement is more probable.

In conclusion the concept that reading popular literature for pleasure reduces stress and provides readers with coping strategies is substantiated through the studies of Ross and Gallik. Surveys indicate that one third of the population surveyed reads in their leisure time and chooses to do so because they experience something valued that they wish to repeat with frequency. A study of physiological changes that the mind and body undergo when an individual is engaged in reading would be an interesting study that could offer medical data to support the studies based on questionnaires and surveys referenced in this document.

Gallik, Jude D. “Do They Read for Pleasure? Recreational Reading Habits of College Students.”  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 42.6 (Mar. 1999):480-488. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost, University of Southern Mississippi, Library@USM. 29 Nov. 2005
http://222.23g32.epnet.com.lynx.lib.usm.edu/.

Robinson, John, and Geoffrey Goodbye. “Time in Our Hands.” The Futurist 39.5 (Sep./Oct. 2005): 18-22. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. University of Southern Mississippi, Library@USM. 29 Nov. 2005 http://www.web32.epnet.com.lynx.lib.usm.edu/. 
Ross, Cahterine. “Finding Without Seeking: What Readers Say About the Role of Pleasure Reading as a Source of Information.” APLIS 13.2 (Jun.2000): 72.81. - Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. University of Southern Mississippi, Library@USM.29 Nov. 2005 www.web32.epnet.com.lynx.lib.usm.edu/

Van Fleet, Connie. “Popular Fiction Collections in Academic and Public Libraries.” - Acquisition in Different and Special Subject Areas, edited by Abulfazal M. Fazle Kabir, New York: Haworth, 2003.