Why does fiction work? It’s all about a little thing called Theory of mind. Theory of Mind is quite simply mind reading. We, as readers, utilize our understanding of the world to impart meaning upon the fictional worlds and characters in books. Without that frame of reference, without what we can understand as basic human truths—sadness, jealously, happiness, anger—we cannot understand the actions of the characters. Mentioned: The Collector Collector by Tibor Fischer Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and The Novel by Lisa Zunshine