The reading interests of a group of older adults were examined. Subjects were 16 adults between the ages of 50 and 85 who read five stories from "Readers' Digest" short story collections and who responded to a questionnaire about their preferences for the stories, their reading habits and interests, and the appealing elements of the stories. The results of the study of preferences for the five stories showed that participants preferred happy stories with moral characters. Overall, the subjects indicated a wide variety of reading interests and a continuing interest in reading into older adulthood. Two problems indicated by the respondents were the legibility of print and the trouble they had in finding interesting things to read. In terms of Erickson's developmental theory, these subjects seemed to be in the stage of integrity versus despair, wherein they questioned whether they had had full and productive lives, whether their lives had made a difference. Reading about characters who had met with success in living and who had been rewarded for it was seemingly very appealing for this age group. (RL)