This may have been posted when the story first came out, but I thought it was relevant with the holidays coming up. A study by some science types found that people who read literary fiction are better at social perception.

The idea is pretty simple: the characters in popular fiction tend to be pretty flat, often one dimensional, sometimes two dimensional, but rarely are they as rich and complex as real life people. Literary fiction is more character driven than plot driven, and has a lot more interiority, so you get to see inside the character's head in great depth. By reading literary fiction, you learn more about what people are actually like.

And the corollary to this is what I think really affects most guys: If you're like most modern guys, you spend much more time with the characters on TV, in movies, and in video games than you do with real life people. Being immersed in one-dimensional characters causes you to have misconceptions about people. It creates a tendency to think of people as one-dimensional stereotypes.

Now obviously the best thing you can do is get more in-field experience. But, I'm going to still recommend reading some literary fiction for two reasons. First, the holidays are coming up and that can create all sorts of logistics problems, you're traveling, spending time at your parents' house, etc, etc. Sarging may just not be a good option. So, when you're stuck inside over the holidays, use the opportunity to read something worthwhile. Second, literary fiction gives you a sort of depth that you can't get just from sarging. It can take months or years with someone to really understand their thought process, but you don't have to build up a lot of comfort before fictional characters will let you in.

[Caveat 1: I don't have access to the full study, but the abstract says they compared it to people who read popular fiction, non-fiction, and who didn't read. I don't know if they did general non-fiction or literary non-fiction, but I highly suspect that literary non-fiction has the same benefits.]

[Caveat 2: This isn't a knock on popular fiction at all. Pop culture is a great way to bond with people.]