Not sure why someone might deny themselves a good novel. Mark Twain said, "The man who can read fine literature and won't has no advantage over the man who can't."
Besides, I can't imagine a life that didn't include Steinbeck, Faulkner, Hemingway, Twain, Dickens, Kafka, Orwell, Golding, et al. Or, for that matter, Zane Grey, ERB, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, and those guys.
Still, I know judges, attorneys, doctors, and so forth who do so much technical reading on the job that 'recreational reading' is not in their vocabulary.