The poet Billy Collins puts it well I think. On reading fiction he says: “I see all of us reading ourselves away from ourselves, straining in circles of light to find more light until the line of words becomes a trail of crumbs that we follow across a page of fresh snow…”

http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/discussion/why-do-we-read-and-write-novels

“Albert Camus in his book The Rebel [L’Homme revolté]. Camus says that all artwork is a demand for unity, a ‘reconciliation of the unique with the universal’, an imposition of order on our chaotic, closed and very limited experiences of the world. His core idea is that narrative art organises life in such a way that we can reflect on it from a distance, experience it anew and deny the transient nature of the everyday.  Following Camus, I think fiction lets us press pause, rewind, zoom in, zoom out; it creates a space for us to think ourselves and our world in novel ways – to be titillated, frightened, disgusted, amused and surprised – often at ourselves – and meaningfully and distinctly from television or film, have significant control over that experience, to work with the author rather than be worked on by the author.

HT:  Yes, I agree with Malachi and with Camus’s answer.  Someone once said to me that it’s easy to recognise the people who don’t read fiction as their outlook on life is narrower and less imaginative, and they find it hard to put themselves in other people’s shoes. A generalisation, but with elements of truth.  The power of fiction begins with fairy tales, nursery rhymes and picture books  giving children ways of looking at the world and outside themselves.  As we grow up, ‘the compact between reader and writer’, working with the author, is a powerful personal and shared experience, and in recent years a more public experience with the meteoric rise of book groups.   The poet Billy Collins puts it well I think. On reading fiction he says: “I see all of us reading ourselves away from ourselves, straining in circles of light to find more light until the line of words becomes a trail of crumbs that we follow across a page of fresh snow…”