Leisure, Pleasure, and Relaxation

The Libraries collect literature, games, videos, and more for both academic study and leisure.  And, interlibrary loan for any popular fiction title is just at your fingertips!

Use Libraries Search to locate specific titles in our collection, and browse the categories on this guide for ideas. 

Leisure Reading comes with a variety of benefits, including:

• Enhancing social emotional competencies such as managing relationships, enhancing social awareness, promoting moral development, managing emotions, and making responsible decisions. [1]
• Enhancing your reading prowess and proficiency, thus enhancing cognitive growth, critical thinking skills, and writing competency. [2]
• Positively affects mental health by reducing stress, depression, and anxiety, which lessens the burden of everyday psychological frustrations overtime. [3]

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[1] Li, Renjie, Shichao Wang, Zhaojun Chen, Jianpeng Guo, and Yang Wang. “Can leisure reading enhance college students’ social emotional competencies: A large-scale empirical study.” International Journal of Educational Research 130 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2025.102535
[2] Cremin, Teresa. “Reading for pleasure: scrutinizing the evidence base- benefits, tensions, and recommendations.” Language and Education 38, no. 4 (2024): 537-559. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2024.2324948
[3] Levine, Shelby, Sarah Cherrier, Anne Catherine Holding, and Richard Koestner. “For the love of reading: Recreational reading reduces psychological distress in college students and autonomous motivation is the key.” Journal of American College Health 70, no. 1 (2020): 158-164. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2020.1728280

WorldCat is a world catalog of libraries that participate in SU Libraries' inter-library loan network. Search here for books, scores and recordings in other libraries, and we will borrow it for you, free of charge.

Find something you like? Collect the citation and place an interlibrary loan request. PDFs of articles usually arrive in 1-2 days, and books usually arrive in 5-8 business days.

• Use the advanced search and the same subject headings from the SU catalog.
• Be sure to limit by format (book, musical score, recording)
• If on-campus, look for the "Interlibrary Loan" link to transfer the citation directly to our ILL request form.

Visit your local branch of the Onondaga County Public Library and get a card for access to fiction, audio books, DVDs, and more.