Reading is good for your mind and mood.

Even science confirms it:  a person who reads develops better cognitive functions, has greater ease in learning and understanding, and shows a more altruistic behaviour towards others.

From a research conducted by the University of Rome 3, it seems that Italians who love to read are on average happier than those who do not have the habit of spending their free time  in the company of a good book.

But why do we love to read so much ? Why is reading so rewarding? What does reading give us, that we can not get anywhere else?

We’ve compiled our top 7, guided by some of our favourite authors:

1. Reading prolongs life

“Who does not read, at 70 years will have lived a single life: his own! The reader will have lived 5000 years: he was there when Cain slew Abel, when Renzo married Lucia, when Leopardi admired the Infinite… because reading is a backward immortality” (Umberto Eco).

2. It has a soothing effect

“I never had a pain that an hour spent reading has not dispelled” (Charles Montesquieu)

3. It gives us fertile soul

“Books are wheat supplies to be stored for the winter of the spirit” (Marguerite Yourcenar)

4. It makes us look beyond

“A house without books is like a room without windows” (Marco Tullio Cicerone)

5. It makes us better know ourselves

“Every reader, when he reads, he reads himself” (Marcel Proust)

6. It makes us better understand other people

“There are no faster friendships than those between people who love the same books” (Irving Stone

7. It makes us feel part of the world we live in

“This is the most beautiful part of all literature: discovering that your desires are universal desires, that you are not alone or isolated from anyone. You belong” (Francis Scott Fitzgerald)

A good book on the bedside table is therefore a sure passport to the wellbeing of every day. Or, in the words of Nabokov, “To know that you have something good to read before bedtime is one of the most pleasant sensations of life”.