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[freudian__slip]

Today I feel well read.

Now if only I had time (time? discipline? direction? motivation?) to truly be well read.

What books comprise the canon of "well read"-ness?

Comments

[walkingipod]

I'd say a person is generally well-read if they can identify with the themes of most genres based on the canonical works in them. For example, I don't need to read all Victorian literature to understand most Victorian themes, but if I've read "Mrs. Warren's Profession" or "Pride and Prejudice," I've probably got a pretty good handle on the Victorian paradigm. And I feel a well-read person would be familiar with most paradigms that have been influential in shaping today's Western culture.

Matt's 20 Books of Well-Readedness (mostly fiction):
1. The Bible
2. Hamlet
3. The Great Gatsby
4. Oliver Twist
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
6. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
7. Catch-22
8. 1984
9. 2001: A Space Odyssey
10. Uncle Tom's Cabin
11. The Frontier in American History
12. Night
13. Invisible Man
14. Beowulf
15. The Declaration of Independence, et al.
16. The Sun Also Rises
17. Robinson Crusoe
18. Little Women
19. The Chosen
20. Pygmalion

[builtintexas]

Also, some kind of melodrama. I like Les Miserables, but for something shorter, try Hunchback of Notre Dame.

[tcmjoe_trotsky]

Depending on how far one wants to go, there is the Great White Male canon, of which the St. John's College gets the highlights:

http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/asp/main.aspx?page=1302

Which I'm sure one can pick and choose from here, as well as add some salient works from other cultural movements (and there's a depressing lack of Ginsberg and Keruoac in the St. John's Great Books program).

[phee42]

I severely doubt that Chuck Klosterman falls into any sort of intellectual canon, but I just finished "Killing Yourself To Live" and it was a very leisurely read that left me feeling slightly more educated about contemporary music and slightly more inclined to cling on to my stereotypical music snobbery.

[moowithme24601]

http://www.earlygirl.com/booksmarts.shtml

I more or less agree with this assessment.

[darkgeek]

There is no canon, whatever anyone tells you. "Well read" is an indicator of the ability to acquire, coherently structure, and use knowledge. So that person has read Hemingway, this person has read the Gravity Bible, this other person has internalized Sontag, another has mastered the literature on their research specialty -- but if they can't talk to each other about it, none of them are well read.

"Well read" means "knows a lot, knows how to use it, and knows how to communicate about it".

[freudian__slip]

i know, i know. but people have preferences. and favorites. and ideas. its more of a personal canon of the things that you rely on to base that knowing a lot, if that makes any sense?