Research indicates that reading different literature is more than an idle activity that ends when one closes a book. Previous studies suggest that reading fiction, more than reading nonfiction, correlates positively with the reader's social cognition, chiefly cognitive empathy. Earlier studies also suggest that individual differences, especially personality traits, are relevant predictors of reading tendencies that should be considered while studying the relationship between empathy and reading. Hence, this study sought to examine whether personality traits and gender predicted the students' fiction and nonfiction reading tendencies and whether fiction-reading tendency predicted empathy after accounting for nonfiction-reading tendency, personality traits, and gender. A total of 429 university students participated in this study using the following questionnaires: The Emotional Empathy and Fantasy Scale (Raboteg-Šarić, 2002), the IPIP-50 Big-Five markers (Mlačić and Goldberg, 2007), and a newly constructed reading tendencies questionnaire. The results of multiple regression analyses indicate that the Big Five dimensions of intellect and emotional stability positively predict nonfiction-reading tendency. Moreover, Intellect, Agreeableness, and gender (female) positively predict fiction-reading tendency, while Extraversion was a negative predictor. Results of hierarchical regression analyses suggest that the dimensions of intellect and agreeableness, and gender (female) predict cognitive empathy and that fiction-reading tendency positively predicts cognitive empathy after accounting for nonfiction-reading tendency, personality traits, and gender. The dimension of Agreeableness and gender (female) were positive, while Emotional stability and Extraversion were negative predictors of affective empathy. Neither nonfiction nor fiction reading tendency predicted affective empathy after controlling for personality traits and gender.