The news was so hot, two friends called and another sent me the clipping of the article by Pulitzer winning writer Amy Ellis Nutt from the Washington Post – Scientists Say Book Lovers Live Longer Than Non-Readers. Just reading books more than 3.5 hours a week – a half hour a day – can add to your life span. Imagine what reading more in a day can do, but be careful to get up and move around now and then, since the Annals of Internal Medicine recently linked a sedentary lifestyle to early death.
Someone suggested listening to books on tape while walking, jogging, biking – to cover all bases. I could never give up the pleasure of turning the pages, or the convenience of a quick download of a best seller, but I am working on my Audible list. Here are a few:
- The Country Wife – starring Maggie Smith in a BBC dramatization
- Say Something Happened by Alan Bennett
- The Road Home: Stories of Lake Wobegon by Garrison Kellor
- In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
My favorite study, however, linked eating chocolate to good health and long life.
The No Charge Book Bunch 
I had no idea! Guess I better get to reading 🙂
I thin you may already be way ahead 🙂
I recommend you add The Turn of the Screw, read by Emma Thompson, to the Audible list, if I haven’t already suggested that. Great reading.
Thank you. This is great! I’m always shuffling through Audible, trying to find something good.
Do they live longer because they read or are they living longer because they are people who do many wise things, including reading?
Good point. My guess is we readers would all keeping reading anyway – even if it were not “good for you.”