Novels, in particular long ones with extensive casts of well developed characters, have really shaped and enabled my empathy. They do this partly through allowi

Novels, in particular long ones with extensive casts of well developed characters, have really shaped and enabled my empathy. They do this partly through allowing you to occupy multiple and usually quite different POVs, and by elaborating on the reasons which are often adopted by people. Characters are often 'types', but it's the exposure to novel types that is what allows you to come away from a novel with a new outlook on a particular occupation, position, personality, politics, or relationship. The disdain for novels by some people (Sam Bankman-Fried as a particularly egregious example) is really rather pathetic. Fiction, and more broadly storytelling, plays a vital role in shaping who we are, how we present ourselves to others, and how one can learn to do those things as well, in the midst of a community. Besides, their are more great books than one can read in a lifetime. It's a resource that can't be spent. Some excellent examples: Middlemarch, by George Eliot Brothers Karamazov, or Crime and Punishment, by Dostoyevsky Madame Bovary by Flaubert, or Bel-Ami by Maupassant The Book of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen The Corrections by Franzen Recognitions by Gaddis Foster by Claire Keegan (short but incredible) (That's a personal list, and by no means exhaustive, just some recommendations.)