Hello book lovers, do you know that reading good books is the secret to a long life?

A study has found just discovered that book readers lived an average of two years longer than those who did not read at all.

Those who read for more than three and a half hours a week were 23 per cent less likely to die in the study over 12 years, researchers revealed.

The researchers, from Yale University, used data on 3,635 people who were age 50 or over.

Book readers lived for an average of 23 months - nearly two years - extra than those who didn’t read.

The study’s author, Professor Becca Levy, of Yale University, said: ‘People who report as little as a half-hour a day of book reading had a significant survival advantage over those who did not read.

‘And the survival advantage remained after adjusting for wealth, education, cognitive ability and many other variables.’

Writing in the paper, she added: ‘These findings suggest that the benefits of reading books include a longer life in which to read them.’

The study was reported in the journal Social Science and Medicine.

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