What you read affects your social skills.

Anton Chekhov can't read you.

All those times you were cooped up in the house reading Anton Chekhov actually helped in developing your social skills.

According to a study published in the journal Science (which probably should be ignored), people who read literary fiction (as opposed to popular fiction and serious nonfiction) performed better on tests that measured emotional intelligence, empathy, and social perception--all key when it comes to reading an individual's body language and understanding their unspoken feelings, as in body language.

So why does reading the likes of Louise Erdrich and Anton Chekhov (both of whom were used in the study, among others) help develop empathy in a reader? Where does Danielle Steele come up short? Researchers say literary fiction largely leaves a lot to the imagination, so the reader must make an inference to understand how a character feels. When Danielle Steele describes characters ripping each others clothes off, you already get the gist they're feeling--uhh--sexy, so you don't need an emotional Rosetta Stone to figure that one out.

The New York Times contacted Louise Erdrich via email to ask for her thoughts on the study, and she was thrilled with the results. "Writers are often lonely obsessives," she said, "especially the literary ones. It’s nice to be told what we write is of social value."

Now go read some Dostoevsky and then re-read Erdrich's comment with empathy. (Psst: She's taking this whole writing thing kind of hard.)