(UPDATE) VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis' bookish side emerged on Sunday after the Vatican published a letter in which the pontiff encouraged young priests to read, while revealing that he himself likes the great tragedies.

'How can we speak to the hearts of men and women if we ignore, set aside or fail to appreciate the 'stories' by which they sought to express and lay bare the drama of their lived experience in novels and poems,' the pope asked in his July 17 letter to priests-to-be, published by the Vatican on Sunday in eight languages.