<p>I've been reading that some devs/dbas recommend using transactions in all database calls, even read-only calls. While I understand inserting/updating within a transaction what is the benefit of reading within a transaction?</p>

So you get a consistent view of the database.  Imagine you have two tables that link to each other, but for some reason you do 2 selects... in pseuodocode:
```
```
myRows = query(SELECT * FROM A)
moreRows = query(SELECT * FROM B WHERE a_id IN myRows[id])
```
```
If between the two queries, someone changes B to delete some rows, you're going to have a problem.