Which type expands the mind more, and benefits your intellect, all things considered, fiction or non-fiction? We know that fiction books expand your imagination and creativity, and non-fiction books expand your factual knowledge, but is there in general a superior type between the two? That is, if one spends spends large amounts of time reading, which type is better for you overall?
It really depends on what the fiction, or non-fiction is about. Some non-fiction can be next to useless, like Dawkins The God Delusion, whereas some fiction can really expand the mind, like Milton's Paradise Lost or Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Some non-fiction is brilliant, like Dawkins science books, and some fiction does nothing, like everything Tess Gerritsen ever wrote.
In large part it depends on what you put into them. I don't put much into fiction. I read it quickly, often skipping bits of description here and bits of dialogue there as my fancy suits. I'm driven by a need to just get to the end of the story even when a lot of the fiction I read is meta-fiction (that's to say when there's not much of a story to speak of). I put a lot more into (certain works of) non-fiction: dwelling on ideas; arguing with the author; properly thinking etc etc
