To make up for the appalling gap in quantitative and qualitative information about what literature is supposed to do, Miall (English, U. of Alberta) draws on literary theory, psychology, neuropsychology and evolutionary psychology in the development of his empirical study of the role played by feelings in readers' responses that exist quite apart from cognitive understanding. He describes the process of becoming empirical, including the necessity for conducting such studies, experimental approaches, the concepts of interpretation and cognition in terms of feeling and feeling in comprehension. He also explores contexts such as episode structures, neuropsychological indicators, the body in metaphor and feeling, and phonemic iconicity and proposes an evolutionary framework for literary reading. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)