# How to become well read. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 24, 2005, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907 "2005-04-24T21:55:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Middlea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/edb3f5/32.png) [@Middlea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Middlea)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/21 "2005-04-25T12:58:34Z")
I would recommend reading old copies of MAD magazine. I read them voraciously as a youth and now I know the plots of many movies I’ve never actually had to pay to see. For many movies, I can summarize the plot and provide quotes with annoying accuracy and authority without ever actually seeing any of them on screen. And you’ll save yourself 9 bucks! 🙂 BTW: Thanks all for the reading suggestions. Been wanting to read Don Quixote, but there are so many translations to choose from - any suggestions? ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/22 "2005-04-25T17:10:14Z")
Anybody who gives you a list of books of one particular type and says, “Read these to become well-read” is just being pretentious. They key to being well-read is _variety_. Read old and new books. Read fiction and nonfiction. Cross the genres, and look for the genre-benders. Try everything once, and then start to focus in on what you like. I’ve been enjoying working my way around the bookstore and reading a book from each section, and then narrowing it down to a book from each shelf unit in each section. Some of it, I don’t like _at all_, but I’ve also discovered some gems outside of my normal areas of interest. You’ll find books that the literati say are “great works” that you will probably think are trash (well, I did, anyway). Similarly, if you take the time to read some books that are widely bashed, you may find that you like some of them. It’s all about broadening horizons. ---
**Author:** ![CBCD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@CBCD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBCD)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/23 "2005-04-25T18:03:46Z")
> [@Middlea](#): > > BTW: Thanks all for the reading suggestions. Been wanting to read Don Quixote, but there are so many translations to choose from - any suggestions? [This translation by Edith Grossman](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060188707/qid=1114452146/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-0515338-3315346?v=glance&s=books) made some people jump up and down and scream with delight when it was published in 2003. One of those doing some jumping was the aforementioned Harold Bloom, who wrote the introduction. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/24 "2005-04-25T20:58:44Z")
To be well read, read well. Read. Read some more. Read a lot more. It doesn’t matter what you read. It can range from comic books to classics. It’s the act of reading that exercises your brain and your imagination. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/25 "2005-04-25T21:21:28Z")
Hey Middlea - You may have learned from Mad magazines, but I got my initial education from reading good old Classic Comics. My brother & I had a huge collection, which I read over and over. I can still picture some of the illustrations from these. When I grew up a bit and read some of the real things, it made Dickens and Sir Walter Scott and many others easier to follow. And some of the classic comics were better than the real thing (in terms of entertainment and not literary/historical value at any rate). ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/26 "2005-04-25T21:46:16Z")
To me, being well-read does not neccessarily mean having read all the classics which most people have not. It does mean that one should recognize many of the classic themes and storylines and characters. I would encourage you to keep your eyes and ears open for books, authors, poems, poets music, composers, even movies and plays that are referenced by others. Then find them and read (or otherwise expose yourself to them). If you like one work by an author (or whoever) read more. If you don’t move on. For example, I picked up this book _Suspense and Sensibility_ A Mr. and Mrs. Darcy Mystery by Carrie Bebris the other day. It’s a mostly enjoyable lighthearted mystery with a touch of the paranormal set in Jane Austen’s England featuring the former Elizabeth Bennett and her husband Darcy. If I were trying to become well-read, I might take this as a clue to read Jane Austen’s _Pride and Predjudice_. (As it happens, I have read it and enjoyed it, more than once). The urge to read Austen would be encouraged by noting the reference on the book jacked to a series of mysteries featuring Miss Jane Austen herself as detective, and the fact that I’ve somewhere seen a more traditional sequel to _Pride and Predjudice_ and I know I’ve read a science fiction short story or novella featuring the Bennett sisters. And that is not all the places that that particular novel and its characters have been reused. Likewise, if you’ve never read any Sherlock Holmes stories, you should do so. Shakespeare’s _Hamlet_ (as well as several other of his plays) have at least in their broadest senses become threads in the tapestry of pop culture. I’ve read several science fiction books which quote from Gilbert and Sullivan. I would encourage you to look for those kinds of pervasive elements and look for their sources, and then read the sources. Read some mythology. Read some Ovid and Balzac and Homer. Think about authors you read in school, read some other works of theirs. Don’t set out to read everything in a particular niche (unless that niche really appeals to you), but set out to read a smattering here and there which exposes you to a broad range of time periods, locations, styles, etc. And don’t stop reading what you enjoy just so you can call yourself well read. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/27 "2005-04-26T01:14:28Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > Bloom is a pompous ass! 🙂 I read a lot of what he has to say, but none is more arrogant than he. All reading Bloom ever did was make me angry with him. But, he is an expert, and very very bright; he’s certainly got knowledge worth absorbing, if you can stand his attitude. Isn’t that the truth! I swear, I think part of the value of reading Bloom is that you can use it to help develop a zen-like attitude for dealing with difficult people and an ability to cope with stressful situations. It is infuriating that he is both so smart _and_ such a little goober. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/28 "2005-04-26T02:36:48Z")
Allow me to put in a word for non-Western literatures? Why not? Every suggestion so far has been exclusively for European and American literature. I didn’t see where the OP requested only Western literature, but everyone seems to have taken it that way. Rabindranath Tagore was refused admission to the United States, probably for racial reasons. It was the era of Jim Crow. His reaction to the snub: “If Jesus Christ himself were to seek admission to the United States, he would be denied for three reasons: He is penniless. He holds radical ideas. He is an Asian.” You’ve all heard of Rabindranath Tagore? Nobel laureate in literature? ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/29 "2005-04-26T04:09:09Z")
This is pretty much all Western lit, but take a look [here](http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/asp/main.aspx?page=1302&parent=1003#f). It’s a (partial) reading list of what we read at my college (aptly nicknamed the ‘Great Books’ school. No, we don’t technically read every line of every text there (e.g., we only read about half of _Timaeus_. But that’s the reading list for only one of our classes; for freshman year (for example) it doesn’t count the stuff we read in the original Greek in our language class, nor does it include the Euclid and Ptolemy we read in math, nor the massive list of people we read in science. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/30 "2005-04-26T04:29:49Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Allow me to put in a word for non-Western literatures? Why not? Every suggestion so far has been exclusively for European and American literature. I didn’t see where the OP requested only Western literature, but everyone seems to have taken it that way. > > Rabindranath Tagore was refused admission to the United States, probably for racial reasons. It was the era of Jim Crow. His reaction to the snub: “If Jesus Christ himself were to seek admission to the United States, he would be denied for three reasons: He is penniless. He holds radical ideas. He is an Asian.” > > You’ve all heard of Rabindranath Tagore? Nobel laureate in literature? Well, if you look at one or two of my suggestions above, there are several lists of great Eastern works. (And yes, I’ve heard of Tagore.) ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/31 "2005-04-26T04:46:14Z")
**NinjaChick**! My stepson graduated from St. John’s Annapolis. What are you doing with your nose out of a book? ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/32 "2005-04-26T05:56:02Z")
> [@Nithotep](#): > > Henry Fielding, Moll Flanders _Moll Flanders_ was written by Daniel Defoe. Fielding is most famous for _Tom Jones_. Lots of great recommendations in this thread – I won’t repeat any, but will add Thomas Hobbes’s _Leviathan_, Robert Penn Warren’s _All the King’s Men_, and some William Faulkner (_Light in August_ and _The Unvanquished_ being the novels of his I’ve read). Also, don’t forget the short stories of O. Henry, Efgar Allan Poe’s tales and poems, Ambrose Bierce’s _The Devil’s Dictionary_, Arthur Miller’s _Death of a Salesman_… ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/33 "2005-04-26T06:02:49Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > Isn’t that the truth! I swear, I think part of the value of reading Bloom is that you can use it to help develop a zen-like attitude for dealing with difficult people and an ability to cope with stressful situations. It is infuriating that he is both so smart _and_ such a little goober. I’m glad you think so! I got weird looks in one of my English classes back when when I said I couldn’t stand him. I bought his “Shakespeare,” and his introduction to it made me laugh and scream all at the same time. Maybe I ought to start a Harold Bloom pit thread. But it is strange, because as much as I can’t stand him, I definitely get something out of reading what he has to say, the bastard! ---
**Author:** ![1010011010](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/ea666f/32.png) [@1010011010](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1010011010)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/34 "2005-04-26T06:17:58Z")
Bookstores will sometimes have the summer and/or class reading lists of nearby schools. If anything, it will give you some place to start and they tend to be “important” works. I actually got started on my classic fiction kick when I found a box of novels I was supposed to have read for school. They’re actually okay when you’re not being forced to read and interpret them. A list of “banned” books is also a good place to start. Go down the list… if you recognize the title, you should probably read it. Read War and Peace. Just to say you have. Read collections of short stories. Note authors you like and see what else they’ve done. Pick an good author and read all of their stuff. I recommend Poe, Dickens, or Twain. This is mainly to prove that most “good authors” are viewed that way because intervening time has allowed the wheat to be seperated from the chaff and most people don’t read the horrible, terrible, awful stuff they churned out day after day after day. Mediate on how future generations will view Steven King. Most importantly: read. Always have a book going. Have multiple books going. Have a bathroom book. Have a before bed book. Have a lunch break book. Read. Read. Read some more. When you’re through with that, read something else. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/35 "2005-04-26T06:37:36Z")
My friends and I always said that reading the Norton anthologies from cover to cover would make one the god of English literature. Myself, I used them for paperweights. ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/36 "2005-04-26T11:54:59Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > I’m glad you think so! I got weird looks in one of my English classes back when when I said I couldn’t stand him. I bought his “Shakespeare,” and his introduction to it made me laugh and scream all at the same time. Maybe I ought to start a Harold Bloom pit thread. But it is strange, because as much as I can’t stand him, I definitely get something out of reading what he has to say, the bastard! Many years ago, Harold Bloom wrote an introduction to a volume of poetry by English poet Geoffrey Hill (great poet, btw). It was vintage Bloom, and it prompted American poet and essayist Donald Hall, in an essay on Hill, to recommend that readers not let Bloom’s introduction stop them from reading the poems, in a line that has stuck with me all this time: “Trying to read Geoffrey Hill through the fog of Harold Bloom is like going to a Matisse exhibit wearing mud-colored Foster Grants”. Bloom is one of the reasons that, despite being accepted at Yale, I elected to pursue my graduate studies in English lit elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![twelvericepaddies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@twelvericepaddies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twelvericepaddies)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/37 "2005-04-26T17:18:46Z")
Wombat is all wrong - reading the best lit and a lot of it improves the human a LOT. Read only great books - the rest are tasteless fluff once you hit the real lit. Read all of Balzac (the best of all) Dickens, Dostkeyvsky, Hardy, Victor Hugo, Maugham, Zola (esp. Zola - do not miss), only early Pynchon and certainly War & Peace. It is always interesting to read great authors’ bios and find out who they read & read those I have done that a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/38 "2005-04-26T17:23:08Z")
Here’s another vote for the banned book list. Each year, during Banned Book Week (read all about it on the American Library Association Web site), we set up a big display of banned and challenged books in our store and invite the public in for a banned book reading. We get local authors, teachers, school administrators, and librarians to come in and pick their favorite banned books to read, and sometimes students get brave enough to join in. Then I go around to local schools and talk to the students about book burnings, challenges, and bannings. There are some wonderful books on those lists! ---
**Author:** ![twelvericepaddies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@twelvericepaddies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twelvericepaddies)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/39 "2005-04-26T17:25:20Z")
p.s. For more academic great books, look for the GBWW - Great Books of the Western World - it is a set of about 100 volumes (???) of essential reading. It is in all libraries and sometimes in used book stores for reasonable prices. I think it is the last volume that contains many of the questions that are used in university tests by profs - because they are the central questions one needs answered in reading these great works. BTW I briefly had a huge volume titled “A history of human stupidity” w/the subtitle “How much am I expected to pay extra for the stupidity of others”? and I gave it to a friend as a wedding gift - such a shame, as I never saw another copy and wished that I kept it for myself. ---
**Author:** ![spingears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2005, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907/40 "2005-04-27T00:39:13Z")
> [@Cadabra](#): > > Anyway, here I am with a question that has been on my mind since the late 80’s, what books do you feel one must read to become well read? In few words, “Great Books” The Bible, The Constitution of the US, and The Federalist Papers, for starters. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-become-well-read/300907.md?page=3)