Reading certain types of books can show that you 'fit in' certain rooms. You can make a snarky joke about Don Quixote or Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, and in the right room it will show that you 'fit'. It also is an innocuous way to demonstrate that you're a full person outside of the office. I do this in my everyday job. In my experience, it doesn't necessarily lead to higher wages, but it leads people who are also well-read to like you and want to converse with you, so it makes running your job a bit easier -- there are people for whom I have bonded with at work because we've both read french existentialist literature, for example, or because we both know the poetry of william carlos williams.