There are many advantages to being a reader. Most importantly, it gives you something awesome to do on a rainy day, or pretty much any day, and doesn’t require electricity or feeding. Also, if you’re a child, being a reader doesn’t just build intelligence, it builds self-confidence.

Now, apparently, reading is positively associated with longer life. That’s the result of a study in Social Science & Medicine. According to the Times:

Compared with those who did not read books, those who read for up to three and a half hours a week were 17 percent less likely to die over 12 years of follow-up, and those who read more than that were 23 percent less likely to die. Book readers lived an average of almost two years longer than those who did not read at all.

As to what kind of books led to this kind of outcome, the study’s authors didn’t say.