Thing is, one should read lots and lots of fiction until his mid-20s at the latest, if he/she leaves the “reading lots of fiction” part after that timeframe the

Thing is, one should read lots and lots of fiction until his mid-20s at the latest, if he/she leaves the “reading lots of fiction” part after that timeframe then it would have already been too late. Back to your example, reading non-fiction after you had turned 30 (let’s say some historiography) would have made you more aware that basing one’s perception of a specific past historical phenomenon on one work of fiction is very problematic, you’re practically adopting that person’s whole worldview, with all the pluses and the minuses that come with that. For example reading authors like Douglass doesn’t account for not “explain” how come the abrupt end of slavery was not the best thing ever in the short to middle term for lots of Black people from the US South, we need history books in order to try and make sense of that (interspersed with some sociology, economic history, anthropology and oral history accounts that we were lucky enough to put onto written form).