I learned French partly through reading - well, that and being immersed in Belgian culture that didn't speak anything else.

In my opinion, it's definitely worth learning French to read the classic comics such as "Tintin et Milou" (Tintin and Snowy in English, Tim und Struppi in German) or "Mortimer et Blake". And also Marcel Pagnol's memoirs of his youth ("'Le gloire de mon père", "La chateau de ma mère" etc.).

German... hmm... need to think about that one. Probably also the (newer classics) like the "Schachnovelle" by Stefan Zweig and such.