Thats what you do when reading a book.... you look into the mind of the writer and, if the writer is good at the job, you also look into the heart and sometimes even the soul of the characters.
I've not only traveled the world in books, but also time and space, I've entered the minds of the great thinkers from Socrates/Plato to Descrates/Voltaire, Menzies and Saul. Journalists also write great books as do biographers and travellers.
ppl say to me I should get out more... I say they should get in more. Reading is an inner experience which can transcend the mundane because it takes one into another person's mind, life, town, culture, political life and national constructs.... so I've lived in pre-christian Israel and traveled to Turkey on foot, I've walked beside Confucius and listened to the ancient Greeks and Romans. I've been to the stars and into the life of hydrogen as an element...
Literature, eg Dickens, Zola, Dostoyevski, Shakespeare, and many more ancient and modern writers enables a different perspective on life. It is the most valuable and yet the cheapest form of art, the most accessible means of learning.
