Men should read good fiction. It is often the case that men who do not read good fiction struggle significantly to understand others. They will think mainly propositionally and treat others mechanically, expecting them to engage in a particular way, using a particular school of logic and reading them through encyclopedic lenses.
Good fictional works allow men to see kindness as a virtue, explore the good life, and develop relationships within a paradigm of grace and wonder. Too often, the most demanding men to counsel are those who are theologically well-read but fictionally deficient. They assert themselves over their families with brute dogmatism and fail to embrace the good story of each child or spouse. They point out in a calculated fashion the errors of everyone else without engaging the role they had in altering the story of others.
