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This is interesting, but I don't think the scientific data supports the "empathy" theory described in the article.
If you click through to the brain scan research, all it demonstrates is that the reading stimulates the same area of the brain that would be stimulated if the event happened in real life. I.e, when the reader read a passage about pulling a cord on a light switch, there was activity in the part of the brain that was used to cause your hand to make a grasping motion. While I think that this is very useful for understanding what happens when we read, there's nothing about "empathy" in the brain scan research. The empathy bit comes from a completely unrelated essay by someone else positing that reading makes people more empathetic...but there's no connection to the actual scientific research.
I'm kind of skeptical that reading makes people "better" anyway - Timothy McVeigh was described by everyone who knew him as an "avid reader," but I don't think anyone could call him empathetic.
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