I don't understand the underlying argument from Tim Parks side ("we should read more quality"). It seems to take for granted that "quality" literature is in som

I don't understand the underlying argument from Tim Parks side ("we should read more quality"). It seems to take for granted that "quality" literature is in some way better for us. How does reading, say, Faulkner or Brontë make me a better person? Is that effect stronger than the betterment I might get from (at least what I would consider) well-written commercially successful genre fiction like George RR Martin writes? Is "low quality" pulp like we get from Rick Riordan, Janet Evanovich, or Dan Brown somehow harmful to people that read it? (Those are serious questions, I'm trying to understand the basis of where that side is coming from.)