So what does it take...
...to be well-read?
I've been thinking about this recently, and wondering if the whole idea has the potential to be at all objective? What is well-read, when it comes to the world of books? I'd like to think of myself as someone who is - someone who has read a range of different books covering various authors, genres, political and religious ideologies and so on, but whittling it down to one specific definition, one pinpoint, seems impossible.
For example, as a middle-class white European woman, I might consider someone who has never read any Shakespeare to not be well-read. So does that mean someone who (admittedly, this is very unlikely) has read, say, the complete works of Homer, Joyce, Austen, Wilde and Chaucer, but no play of Shakespeare to be poorly-read? It seems silly to me to answer that with a definite yes.
Being well-read also doesn't mean that you've simply read a lot of books. Reading a hundred bodice-rippers and no other genre only perhaps makes you well-read in that one particular subject.
So what is it? Is there a book, a play, a poem, or a graphic novel that for you would count as the basic standard of good reading, or do you think there is another way to define it? Just how many books does one have to read before they're Officially Well-Read? I want your thoughts!
I've been thinking about this recently, and wondering if the whole idea has the potential to be at all objective? What is well-read, when it comes to the world of books? I'd like to think of myself as someone who is - someone who has read a range of different books covering various authors, genres, political and religious ideologies and so on, but whittling it down to one specific definition, one pinpoint, seems impossible.
For example, as a middle-class white European woman, I might consider someone who has never read any Shakespeare to not be well-read. So does that mean someone who (admittedly, this is very unlikely) has read, say, the complete works of Homer, Joyce, Austen, Wilde and Chaucer, but no play of Shakespeare to be poorly-read? It seems silly to me to answer that with a definite yes.
Being well-read also doesn't mean that you've simply read a lot of books. Reading a hundred bodice-rippers and no other genre only perhaps makes you well-read in that one particular subject.
So what is it? Is there a book, a play, a poem, or a graphic novel that for you would count as the basic standard of good reading, or do you think there is another way to define it? Just how many books does one have to read before they're Officially Well-Read? I want your thoughts!