Read A Book Day: How reading fiction could make you more empathetic
By Dan Kauna, September 6, 2026Today marks Read a Book Day, observed every September 6 to nudge people back to the page.
For many Kenyans juggling long commutes and packed schedules, fiction often loses out to social media and the news cycle.
Yet a growing body of research suggests that swapping your phone for a novel, even briefly, could do more than pass the time. It could make you a kinder, more understanding person.
The science of getting lost in a story
Psychologists call it transportation, the feeling of being pulled so deeply into a story that the real world fades.
A 2013 study published in the peer reviewed journal PLOS ONE tested this directly. Researchers gave one group of readers a Sherlock Holmes story and another group newspaper articles, then measured empathy before reading, straight after, and again a week later.
Readers who felt strongly transported by the fiction became noticeably more empathetic over that week. Those who read the news reports showed no such shift.
The researchers concluded that fiction reading “is positively related to empathy across time,” but only among readers who felt genuinely pulled into the narrative.
A newer analysis backs this up. A 2026 review in the journal Frontiers in Psychology pooled results from 21 separate studies on fiction and empathy.
It found a modest but reliable link between reading literary fiction and stronger perspective taking, the ability to imagine how someone else sees the world.
What it means for everyday Kenyans
None of this means one novel will transform how you treat people overnight. The effect builds gradually, and it depends on genuinely losing yourself in a story rather than skimming for plot.
But in a country where public arguments can turn heated fast, whether in a matatu queue or a family WhatsApp group, a small nudge towards empathy is worth having.
Practically, this means fiction deserves a place next to the self-help books and news feeds most Kenyans already consume. A Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie novel, a Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o classic, or even a well-written local thriller could quietly sharpen how you read people, not just pages.
So today might be as good an excuse as any to pick up that novel gathering dust on the shelf. Ksh500 at a local bookshop could buy more than an afternoon of entertainment. It could buy a little more understanding for the people around you.