In her famous essay Reading for Life Martha Nussbaum proposes a theory stating that reading is an ethical act which holds significant implications for the reader's entire life and functioning within the community.(Nuss-baum 1990) The essay title might therefore be understood as a summons to apply the knowledge and experience gained from reading in order to live a better, fuller, more responsible and conscious life. Another interpre-tation is that Nussbaum places reading on the same level as processes and activities indispensable to maintaining life in its basic, biological form; to paraphrase – that there is no life without reading. Or, at least, no life wor-thy of the name. Undoubtedly, despite distressing reports on the decrease of readership, there still are people for whom this high-minded statement rings true and who indeed cannot imagine a day without reading. For them, reading is a way of life. This phenomenon, or more broadly, readers’ reception of literary works, has been a subject of interest to literary schol-ars – professional readers, who endeavour to explain the phenomenon of reading from a scientific perspective, but still not without certain personal sentiments.

The scope and range of readership studies illustrates the scale and im-portance of the phenomenon of reading. Writing, as much as it remains a complementary counterpart of reading, seems to be a less egalitarian pur-suit – or, at least, this has been the case until recently.