Reading: Fiction is educational too!

I am in the middle of reading the book, "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini and I cannot put it down! It's got me avoiding my boyfriend and other activities I should be doing/working on because it is so addicting. All I want to do is finish it already and move on to "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by the same author. I think about it all day and I ask everyone if they have read it. One day, I asked my sister if she had read the book, to which she replied, "I only read books that I learn something from." This statement made me a little angry because even though the book itself is considered fiction, it reads as if it were an actual story of a boy-turned-man's life growing up in Afghanistan and his move to America. I'm sure that this fictitious story is actually very similar to what life was like for Afghans during the 70's and 80's when the Soviet army invaded and when the Taliban rose to power. It combines an entertaining fictional story with real-life facts and experiences. The author, Khaled Hosseini, did actually grow up in Afghanistan and I would not be surprised if a few (if not more) events from his book really occurred in his life. So it really is not 100% fiction. I feel like I have learned a lot from reading this book and other fiction books that I have read purely for amusement. "The Kite Runner" gives you a first-person perspective of a typical Afghan's lifestyle. Where else can you learn that AND have a good time doing so? I do not personally know anyone from Afghanistan that could share their experiences with me. This is as close as it gets for me. I feel like it's helping me to get to know what other parts of the world are like without actually going there. Am I wrong to think that I might possibly be learning from an entertaining fiction book?