“Good literature substitutes for experience which we have not ourselves lived through.” – Alexander Solzhenitsyn

I think Alexander Solzhemitsyn means that we can live and relate to experiences that we read in books. We can experience things through reading that we may never have the opportunity to do ourselves in real life, whether it be traveling to a faraway place or even an imaginary place, or being a part of the past or the future. Books can take us to different places, people, and even to a different time. They help us pass time and escape from the world around us. Good literature helps us to connect to the characters we read about.