What Exactly Is Leisure Reading?

Many academic libraries have a "Leisure Reading" collection, and the term has always troubled me a little. Pleasure reading, recreational reading, and fiction reading all sound as if it is done outside of a constructive purpose and is therefore diminished in its worth. For instance, if reading is assigned at school or university, then is it leisure reading? Probably not unless you happen to be an English major and enjoy whatever it is you are reading. That is what happened to me when I was in graduate school, except I didn't much care for Henry James' novels. Edith Wharton, I loved. If you are reading something for work or your job, then you are doing it in pursuit of earning your livelihood. If money enters the picture, then it is no longer seen as leisure. There is more. When I think of leisure reading, I imagine the reader is seated in an overstuffed armchair or stretched out on a chaise lounge beside the swimming pool. Both of those images seem frivilous and carefree, not serious and goal-oriented. So, I suppose leisure reading = fun, or it just isn't leisure reading which diverts or amuses and doesn't teach or instruct. Whatever it is, there is a lot of leisure reading going on, and I'm grateful for that much, both as a novelist and as a reader.