I have hesitated picking up a book because it looked, well, stupid. Or of a lower class than typically “respected” literature. Or it didn’t sound useful. Or it wasn’t popular. It wouldn’t make me more cultured, or give me information, so why bother?
First of all, have fun with reading, it’s worth it. Books, especially fiction, can serve as a much needed escape from screens and reality. Second, it all teaches you something a bit less tangible than numbers and history. That something for me is empathy. Empathy is a hard thing to measure, but research has shown that people that read tend to have better social cognition, and another study vouched for reading fiction specifically. Immersing yourself in someone else’s head like you do with fiction allows you to, if only for a moment, see the world through someone else’s eyes.
Romance, fantasy, sci-fi, thriller, mystery, literary, and everything in between have something to teach you. It doesn’t have to be popular to grow your ability to connect with your neighbours and open up your perspective, so pick up that random weird sounding book you noticed on the library shelf.
