Reblogged from The Story Reading Ape:

Do you think of reading as an escape?

It’s a phrase we all hear many times. “I read to escape,” or “I’m going to escape into a good book.” But what do we really mean? It’s a question that has niggled in the back of my mind for some time, but Fantasy author V.E. Schwab actually put it into words in a recent article on the Tor.com website, “Escape from what?”

My own attitude towards reading has always been more of a comparison to taking an exotic holiday, especially when reading science fiction or Fantasy because the alternate worlds can be very different from normal reality, yet it applies to other genres as well. If you read a Mystery or Romance novel set in a country other than where you live, a good writer will give you a taste of the location and it’s almost like enjoying actual travel to the country. A novel in the Historical Fiction category can take you to another time and place, similar to participating in a re-enactment society.

Reading can be an escape from a dull or unpleasant situation in life, but for the majority of people who are generally happy in their lives, the ‘escape’ is an interlude, a little time in a different world where ordinary cares and stresses are forgotten for just a little while to deal with whatever conflict drives the story instead.

Continue reading at The Story Reading Ape