Most of the post is devoted to 'Why I think fiction is useful'.
The author's answer: vicarious learning.
Author answers how to maybe rank and choose a book: Book that provides recognizable experience of human decision making is better than book that does not.
Which is fine. But not 'How to Read a Novel'.
I felt like the writer didn't really get what novels are for, and it explains why he decided he's a better fit for non-fiction. He seemed to be explaining novel utility to a bunch of imaginary STEM grads.
Personally, I read for the metempsychosis. Like Zelig but with authors, a briefly shared subjectivity that shapes whatever I go back to when I put the book down.
Reading novels helps me escape the tyranny of my own mind (just like reading history helps us escape the tyranny of our own time, as the man said). In a way I feel like the West meditates through novels.