The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane is a evidence-based book that summarizes advice about dealing with social situations. I'm not sure whether it helps in the reading department but it provides practical tips that improve social ability and multiple people on LW recommended the book in the past.
When it comes to reading people in my own experience reading other people has a lot to do with being able to read yourself. Developing my own bodily awareness helped me a lot with reading other people. It gave me awareness of things like when a partner of a conversation tenses up when I say something.
Paul Ekman sells an online course for detecting microexpression to detect emotional states of other people. Paul Ekman is a serious academic psychologist but it's not 100% clear whether all his claims are true in the strong form in which he makes them. If you have money to spend doing his course seem like a good investment.
Creating an Anki deck for Ekman style detection of emotions also seems like a good project from my own perspective. I think a lot of people on LW and in general would appreciate such a deck.
All that said, don't think that you will improve social skills by sitting in front of a book. Improvement comes from actually practicing and doing exercises.
Thanks for the recommendations! Definitely looking into it. Some of the 'theory' stuff is interesting too. Things like the posts on lesswrong that conceptualize offense as a grab for status. Any recommendatons on that front? On 'theory' of social interaction.
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