Joining a book club is good for mental health, University of Newcastle researcher Dara Sampson says.
Dr Sampson, of Hunter Medical Research Institute, said book clubs enable people to "build a community".
She formed a book club with former students as part of her research.
"It created an egalitarian place where no voice was seen to have more privilege than others," said Dr Sampson, who spoke about her research to mark World Mental Health Day.
"Everyone had a view on the book. It was a really good equaliser. We could agree or disagree, but the book became the conduit for the discussion."
Talking about the experience of characters in a book was "much safer than talking about it from our own perspective".
Discussing fiction provided "a safe space" to examine "confronting, challenging and complex emotions and ideas".
"Particular books really resonated with our experiences. We were sometimes forgiving of books that we knew weren't particularly good because something in there connected with us."
Her research showed that conversations about particular books were "more important than the book choice".
"It became less about the book and more about the community connection," she said.
Empathy was developed when those in the book club heard and understood the perceptions and thoughts of others.
"It also gives the capacity to be changed by other people's opinions," she said.
Book club members could have a "quite heated discussion", but think more about other opinions and come to understand them over time.
Dr Sampson added that book clubs help people overcome loneliness and isolation.
"It's a low cost, low risk way for people to create a community," she said.
The results of her research, soon to be published in a book, affirmed "the importance of story".
Becoming immersed in a story enabled the "development of advanced empathy".
"People who tend to read a lot of fiction come up in studies as demonstrating high levels of empathy," she said.
She said there was a stereotype that people who read were loners with poor social skills, but "research has found the opposite".
