I agree that we have strong imaginative experiences when we read. Maybe you can call this “living other lives” sometimes, but for me, anyway, this simply doesn’t happen very often and when it does happen it is only for a short time. I think the writer is exaggerating here to make the point that reading has importance in our imagination.
3 Reading books allows us to enjoy and celebrate this variety and
difference in safety, and provides us with an opportunity to grow. How does this idea contrast with the title of the passage? In what way can a book help us “grow”? The word “Danger” in the title contrasts with this idea that reading is a safe experience. However, this is not a contradiction because experiences that would be dangerous in real life are quite safe when we read about them in books. The author seems to think that we grow in our minds with a better understanding and enriched imagination when we meet a wide variety of people and different situations in books. This vicarious experience in reading is a safe way to grow mentally and