Reading a novel has been among my most fulfilling daily activities for the past year. I read a part of a novel for an hour before I go to bed every night. I also love spending a weekend afternoon finishing a novel. Aside from it being a relaxing and rejuvenating activity, there are plenty of other reasons you should read a novel:

• Gain new perspectives:We as a society are constantly inundated with diverse ideas and opinions from other people in the present age. Even so, the intense effort required to succeed in the life sciences often finds us thinking only from certain angles. Reading novels provides us with new points of view, not just from our present time but throughout history. We can expose ourselves to an infinite set of human experiences by reading a good novel. We can understand how people behave and think and enhance our abilities to communicate with our target audiences. Lastly, we can train our minds to understand how the experiences of others shape their daily lives and rationale. All these traits are essential to being a successful science writer.
• Expand your imagination: Being a good writer requires a strong imagination. We often find ourselves imagining all the possibilities of accurate long-read sequencing to diagnose genetic variation, being able to image 3D structures to a nanoscale level, or tracking the expression of individual cells through single-cell sequencing. How would all of that be possible without a strong imagination? What’s especially amazing is that novelists, especially in science fiction, have been imagining new worlds like these for centuries. Just read Jules Verne and you’ll see what I mean. Reading novels will help you feel those worlds come alive with all the possibilities they can bring.
• Improve your writing: I feel like we’ve lost a bit of appreciation for how impactful writing can be. The best novelists throughout history could inspire global change with their writing. Charles Dickens wrote with such wit and heart-touching prose that his pen drove societal reforms in Victorian England. His prose also facilitated the opening of the first pediatric hospital in the UK. By reading from the best authors – both modern and classics – we can learn to write in a way to speaks to our audiences today. No it doesn’t mean you should write in old-style English. Instead, reading novels exposes you to strong prose that you can apply in your own writing. 

All this is just the tip of the iceberg of reading’s benefits. For one, reading the classics is associated with improved moral behaviour. You can also enhance your vocabulary and improve empathy by reading. With all these benefits, why not spend a half hour of your day reading a novel?