Health Check - How reading fiction impacts our mental health
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How does reading shape our mind and spirit? Why do novels make us feel more human?
In front of a live audience at the Hay Festival of Literature & Arts in Wales in the UK, Claudia Hammond looks at the science of what reading does to the mind and explores the profound impact it can have on our lives and well-being.
She is joined on stage by award-winning novelist and travel writer Joanna Kavenna; Dr Paula Byrne, Jane Austen biographer, writer and co-founder of ReLit: The Bibliotherapy Foundation and Ben Alderson-Day, Professor in Psychology at Durham University and lead researcher on ReaderBank, an ongoing research project studying reading, imagination and wellbeing.
With these leading experts in psychology and the literary world, she examines the range of imaginative experiences that fiction readers have, whether novels can deepen our capacity for empathy and the therapeutic effect of reading on our minds.
Presenter: Claudia Hammond
Producer: Helena Selby
Published on Wednesday, 10th June 2026.
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