This is so true.  I can testify to that, and I am not saying I can read people or I am any particularly better at reading people, but I have to say I learned the MOST  from reading literary fictions.  There was a time I read at least one book a month, and get through at least half of The New Yorker each week.  I remember having this debate with my friends about reading fictions, they were so against it, thought it was a “waste of time” when one is not getting “facts” or “information” from the fiction.  But the truth is, in order for a story to sound convincing, writers do a lot of research on what they were going to write about (example, a character’s vocation), and character developments and emotions are still “true” in fictions, only the sequence of events/the plot line is made up.  In addition, what people consider non-fiction, say history books, unless one is reading just a bare list of facts, any history in history books is told from the point of view of the author, there alone is an “edited/subjective” report of history.  Another example, a memoir or autobiography, even more vulnerable to subjective interpretation of actually events.

A book that I am interested in reading soon is The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida, translated by KA Yoshida.