Fiction is as valuable as nonfiction in many ways. It can educate us about real things. In addition, it helps us foster our creativity and explore our emotions. Thus, I advocate reading fiction as well as nonfiction. In the first place, fiction can provide us with information about real things and invites a deeper understanding of them. Nonfiction serves as facts on file whereas novels provide us with facts and their implications for real people. Reading novels by Hemingway, for example, helps us understand the consequences of war in the 20th century. In the second place, fiction helps us develop our imagination and creativity. When we read stories, we try to visualize what the characters and settings look like. We even try to picture what it feels like to live a character's life. This kind of empathy is conducive to developing imagination and creativity. For example, by reading novels about people who have scaled high mountains, I gain a vicarious experience and give full play to my imagination. Interestingly, imagination and creativity developed this way has enhanced my understanding of many real life situations, for example, when I have difficulties to surmount. Finally, fiction helps us understand and express our emotions. Novels are a mirror of our lives, and in particular our emotions. By reading them, we develop a sharper understanding of our real feelings and learn to explore or even vent them in new ways. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austin's best novel, has taught me more about the way our emotions work than the events and facts talked about in many psychology textbooks. For example, Darcy, one of the major characters in the novel, shows both pride and prejudice. The way that he maintains and manages both helps me better understand how emotions work. It is important to learn facts, but it is also important to develop imagination and explore emotions. In order to achieve this and deepen our understanding of ourselves and of the world around us, we need to read fiction as well as nonfiction.