A study was conducted to investigate the relationship of fiction reading to adult development. Eighty students at an adult education center completed questionnaires that elicited information concerning their reading of fiction and their adult experiences, as well as demographic information. The results yielded a picture of a group of adult readers whose lives were marked by rapid social and personal change and who were able to assimilate the experience of transition in part through the aesthetic transaction with fiction. The findings suggested that fiction reading did enhance growth and development of the particular group of readers. (FL)