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Good morning I read a lot of novels. Probably too many, for someone who works in a think tank and therefore spends most of my time around research, arguments and rational debate. I feel faintly guilty that I'm more excited about this week's announcement of the Man Booker Prize winner than Black Swan theory, Tipping Points, or whatever the economist Thomas Piketty is writing now. But something that one of the Booker prize judges said has encouraged me. According to the journalist, Sam Leith, one of the things the panel were looking for, alongside "stylistic grace, emotional punch and truth to experience", was moral rigour. I don't know exactly what he meant by it, but the idea that fiction might have a moral purpose sounds a bit Victorian. I can almost hear Oscar Wilde snorting at the very thought. Maybe it's because literary fiction does seem to engage our moral faculties in ways that mere entertainment doesn't. It's partly why I need a break from it every now and again to read something frothy like Georgette Heyer. Literary fiction is challenging; wrestling with fundamental ideas of good and evil, right and wrong, what makes a good life, or a good person. The best novels make us question ourselves and the way we live. I think they help us imaginatively break out of our little lives and understand others better. And there is evidence for this: A study published in Science in twenty thirteen found that reading literary fiction builds empathy. So I wonder if this might be part of the reason Jesus told stories. It's a ludicrous anachronism to compare his parables with modern literary fiction. But considering their age and context, some of Jesus' short stories are strikingly evocative. There are references to them all over the literary canon, and they still show up in novels written now. My favourite, the Prodigal son, is a tiny masterpiece. It's just a few lines about a feckless, ungrateful child kicking dirt into the face of his father ... and that same father watching and waiting and coming running, weeping with joy at the son's return. The complete unconditional forgiveness of the father, in contrast to the harsh, self-righteous elder brother, moves me every time I read it. And it challenges me to think about which character I resemble most. C.S Lewis once said that he wrote stories as well as essays because they might have more chance of "sneaking past the watchful dragons of the mind". Perhaps this is why the Booker prize judges were looking for moral rigour- because anything with the power to move, challenge and ultimately perhaps, to change us, needs to be wielded wisely.