# What do you have to have read to be considered 'Well Read'? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 26, 2002, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790 "2002-11-26T00:32:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Gomez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d78d45/32.png) [@Gomez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gomez)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/1 "2002-11-26T00:32:56Z")
If you had the task of deciding what someone else would read for their entire life, what books would you give them to ensure they were as well read as possible? Maximum of 20 books. They can be factual or fictional but please don’t suggest any encyclopaedia’s or compliations (Ie. The complete works of Shakespeare). ---
**Author:** ![Avalonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@Avalonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avalonian)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/2 "2002-11-26T00:43:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Gomez \* > \*\*If you had the task of deciding what someone else would read for their entire life, what books would you give them to ensure they were as well read as possible? Maximum of 20 books. They can be factual or fictional but please don’t suggest any encyclopaedia’s or compliations (Ie. The complete works of Shakespeare). \*\* 20 books over an entire lifetime is decidedly _not_ well-read, if you ask me (which you did, sort of). YMMV. It’s not just about quantity, of course, but twenty books out of the millions of available choices? It’s a molecule in a haystack. You could do a lot worse than starting out with these few… _Of Mice and Men_ _The Athenian Murders_ _The Handmaid’s Tale_ _L’Morte D’Arthur_ _The Dark Tower_ (Stephen King) ---
**Author:** ![Gomez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d78d45/32.png) [@Gomez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gomez)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/3 "2002-11-26T00:47:44Z")
I know it’s am impossible task to become well read on 20 books. The challenge is to make the person you’re choosing the books for as well read as possible on 20 books. ---
**Author:** ![Gomez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d78d45/32.png) [@Gomez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gomez)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/4 "2002-11-26T00:48:59Z")
Also, would it be possible for anyone else to include the authors names? Just to satisfy my own curiosity as much as anything. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Carcosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@Carcosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carcosa)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/5 "2002-11-26T00:53:52Z")
First, I’d read: How to Read a Book by Mortimer Jerome Adler Also, I think there is actually a book that maps out a 20-year program for hitting all the classics and generally accepted “must reads”. Can’t remember the title, maybe a librarian would be able to help you with that one. ---
**Author:** ![Avalonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@Avalonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avalonian)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/6 "2002-11-26T00:54:15Z")
Sorry… with authors this time. _Of Mice and Men_ (John Steinbeck) _The Athenian Murders_ (Jose Carlos Somoza) _The Handmaid’s Tale_ (Margaret Atwood) _L’Morte D’Arthur_ (Sir Thomas Malory) _The Dark Tower_ (Stephen King) _Einstein’s Dreams_ (Alan Lightman) _The Lord of the Rings_ (J.R.R. Tolkien) _Foundation_ (Isaac Asimov) _Hero with a Thousand Faces_ (Joseph Campbell) _Imajica_ (Clive Barker) That’s 10… I’ll let others take it from there. ---
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/7 "2002-11-26T01:14:03Z")
This is a toughie. Here’s ten. This is in the order I was able to think up the books, and I’m sure I left off some that might be better but just didn’t come to mind while I was making up this list. [list=1] [li]To Kill A Mockingbird[/li][li]Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens[/li][li]The Iliad or The Odyssey, by Homer[/li][li]Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen[/li][li]The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver (Note: some people may say The Poisonwood Bible, but I haven’t read it yet)[/li][li]The Bible (your choice of translation)[/li][li]The Koran[/li][li]The Grapes of Wrath[/li][li]Dracula, by Bram Stoker[/li][li]Beowulf[/li][/list=1] ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/8 "2002-11-26T01:14:27Z")
Well read for what purpose? To be a renaissance man? Jack of all books? To be so culturally literate no single reference will ever fly over your head at a cocktail party? Ain’t gonna happen with 20 books. You won’t get it done in 200, 2000, or 20,000 either. Why? There’s always something more to know and there will always be someone else who will exclaim “I cannot believe you haven’t read” X random book. But hey, you asked. So here’s my very partial answer: Science fiction The Time Machine Ender’s Game I, Robot Stranger in a strange land Dune The Hobbit Science Guns, Germs & Steel A brief history of Time Philosophy Godel Escher Bach The Cave Fiction Of Mice and Men Frankenstein The Stand Poetry Hamlet The Odyssey Beowulf See, I just have to give up at this point. I don’t want to add too many to each section and I don’t want to add more than one author for each time and it just gets too hard. Every one of the sections above could have 200 books in it and you still wouldn’t be well read. There could be 200 more sections like these each with 200 books and you still wouldn’t be well read…in some areas. It’s too large a subject. There’s too much information in the world. What do you want to be well read in? ---
**Author:** ![I\_am\_Sparticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@I\_am\_Sparticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_am_Sparticus)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/9 "2002-11-26T01:41:50Z")
Here is a start for you English readers, foreign works may be read in translation. When an author is referred to, and not his work, that means everything he wrote: The Bible, King James Version Shakespeare Chaucer Milton Spencer Joyce Hemmingway Faulkner Steinbeck Moby Dick Huckleberry Finn Aristotle Plato’s Republic and the shorter dialogues. No one reads the Laws or the Crito ('cept for Sparticus, and I don’t recommend them) Thucydides Herodotus Sophocles Aeschylus Homer Seutonius Virgil Plutarch Beowulf Gilgamesh Goethe Dante Cervantes (please read Don Quixote, it is well worth the time) I Ching The Art of War, Sun Tzu Crime and Punishment War and Peace Machiavelli Clauswitz A Remembrance of Things Past (just kidding) This just barely scratches the surface. But if you can read these, you won’t be considered a completely uneducated fool. While some folks above have suggested some more modren works and a list of what a sci fi fan might think necessary, Lord of the Rings and Dune are not yet part of the Western Canon. This is the job of a lifetime, and somebody who is “well read” is always reading something. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/10 "2002-11-26T01:46:28Z")
**Ender** , how on earth does **The Hobbit** get stuck in Science Fiction and **Frankenstein** doesn’t? Here’s my list: 1. **Huckleberry Finn** by Mark Twain. 2. **The Lord of the Rings** by J.R.R. Tolkien 3. **Frankenstein** by Mary Shelley (Shelly? Shely?) 4. **To Kill a Mockingbird** by Harper Lee 5. **Hamlet** by Shakespeare 6. **Macbeth** by Shakespeare 7. **Great Expectations** by Dickens 8. The godawful **Moby Dick** by Herman Melville 9. **Republic** by Plato 10. **Catcher in the Rye** by J.D. Salinger 11. A collection of Poe stories that includes - The Raven, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Black Cat, and The Cask of Amontillado. (Collections of short stories count as one book, IMO). 12. **The Odyssey** by Homer 13. **The Great Gatsby** by Fitzgerald 14. **Jane Eyre** by Charlotte Bronte 15. **Wuthering Heights** by Emily Bronte 16. **On the Road** by Jack Kerouac 17. **The Grapes of Wrath** by Steinbeck 18. **Of Mice and Men** by Steinbeck 19. A collection of Kafke stories that includes The Metamorphosis. 20. **The Old Man and the Sea** by Hemingway Of course, this list is by no means exhaustive. There’s another fifty books that should probably be on there. Notice, I based my decisions mostly on books that seem to come up in conversations or in cultural parodies and such. The question of which of these books is worthwhile to read or if it is the author’s best work is another thing entirely. I also left off a lot of my favorite books and authors like **Catch-22** , Flannery O’Connor and **Ball Four**. ---
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/11 "2002-11-26T01:49:39Z")
**Sparticus** , ya forgot Ovid, Dickens and Twain. Shit, I can’t believe I forgot to list a Twain book myself. ---
**Author:** ![Ulterior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/85f322/32.png) [@Ulterior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulterior)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/12 "2002-11-26T01:50:12Z")
> [@](#): > > No one reads the Laws or the Crito The Crito? You kiddin’? In a year and a half of university Political Science, I’ve read it for three different theory courses. More specifically, it includes a pretty key defense of the rule of law: Socrates is still subject to the laws of Athens even if he thinks they’re bad, which is Plato splitting the difference between natural law theory and legal positivism. Sorta significant in terms of the duties of the citizen in Plato’s philosophy. (just wrote a paper, you see) ---
**Author:** ![I\_am\_Sparticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@I\_am\_Sparticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_am_Sparticus)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/13 "2002-11-26T02:08:51Z")
I included Huckleberry Finn. Other Twain is not really necessary. Except for Letters From the Earth, which is not necessary to being well read, but rather to make sure that you die laughing. The Crito is boring, and necessary for the poly sciences (why I read it), but what do I know, I’ve read The Laws. Yawn. Yes, I forgot Ovid. No, I did not forget Dickens, twas a far, far better omission than I’d ever made before and tis a far, far cleaner conscience than I’ve ever had. He was the the best of authors (paid by the word), he was the worst of authors (paid by the word that we must read today.) But I don’t like J.D. Salinger either. Fortunately, there is not much to dislike there. Like I said, my list was just a beginning of a start. To be well read, you must read a lot. The most read work of fiction in history is probably the Lord of the Rings, and certainly my favorite. But you won’t impress anyone by saying you have read it, everyone has, it isn’t a lot of work to read such a fun novel. But if you read most of the others on my list (not really different than others’ lists), you will begin to understand how damn well read Tolkien was. ---
**Author:** ![SandyHook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/14 "2002-11-26T02:55:08Z")
In no particular order. But at least I’ve read them all, more than once. 1. Grapes Of Wrath - Steinbeck 2. All Quiet On The Western Front - Remarque (sp?) 3. Huckleberry Finn - Twain 4. A Brief History Of Time - Hawking 5. Catch-22 - Golding 6. I Claudius & Claudius The God - Graves 7. The Last Picture Show - McMurtrey 8. Lord Of The Rings - Tolkien 9. Uncle Tom’s Cabin - Stowe 10. The Straight Dope - Adams 11. On The Beach - Shute 12. To Kill A Mockingbird - Lee 13. Salem’s Lot - King 14. Lucy - Johnanson 15. In The Shadow Of Man - Goodall 16. Something by Peter Demming 17. Call Of The Wild - London 18. The Origin - Stone 19. The Foundation - Asimov 20. The Arizona - Little Me OK, so it isn’t done yet. But I"m planning on fininshing it by the end of the year. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/15 "2002-11-26T03:23:52Z")
Catch-22 was Heller. I almost put it on my list, but I’ve found a disturbingly high number of people have never heard of it. Too bad Basically, I chose books that are really well-known, since “well-read” to most people means that you have read well-known literature. Regardless of whether it is good or not. Too bad. ---
**Author:** ![interface2x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/16 "2002-11-26T03:35:08Z")
Man, looks like we’ve got a crapload of _Of Mice and Men_ fans in this thread. If it weren’t so damn good, I’d complain. ---
**Author:** ![Pythagras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/45deac/32.png) [@Pythagras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pythagras)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/17 "2002-11-26T03:59:50Z")
> [@](#): > > The Time Machine > Ender’s Game > I, Robot > Stranger in a strange land > Dune > The Hobbit I cant believe youd make a sci fi list w/o any Phillip K. Dick. Throw some **Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep on that pile**. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/18 "2002-11-26T05:17:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Neurotik \* > \*\ ***Ender** , how on earth does **The Hobbit** get stuck in Science Fiction and **Frankenstein** doesn’t? > \*\* My convoluted thought process: “OK, if I’m doing Science Fiction I really have to add in something from Tolkien. Wait, I can’t do that. That’s fantasy. Well darn it, if I start a new list for fantasy I’m going to have 5 books on that list too. But I can’t combine Sci Fi with Fantasy because that section is too long already and I need places for other selections. OK, so we’ll put Tolkien in science fiction. Damnit! What about Frankenstein? Gah! Too many Science fiction books. OK, I read it for English class so that counts as literature right? Right. We’re putting it on the fiction pile.” I know it makes no sense. As I told you, my whole list makes no sense. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/19 "2002-11-26T05:26:49Z")
Unlike some (most?) people who’ve posted here, I’m not going to make a list of my favorite books. I don’t like all of the works I’m listing here, and I’m leaving off numerous books I love. I’m trying to address the OP. Twenty books, obviously, are not enough to give you a real understanding of Western Civilization, but if you hope to call yourself well-read, you HAVE to read: 1. The Bible 2. Plato’s “Republic” 3. Homer’s “Odyssey” 4. Thucydides’ “History of the Peloponnesian War” 5. Vergil’s “The Aeneid” 6. St. Augustine’s “Confessions” or “City of God” 7. Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” 8. Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” 9. Machiavelli’s “The Prince” 10. Michel de Montaigne’s “Essays” 11. Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” 12. Shakespeare’s “King Lear” 13. John Locke’s “Two Treatises of Government” 14. Burke’s “Reflections on the Revolution in France” 15. “The Federalist Papers” by Madison, Jay, and Hamilton 16. Hugo’s “Les Miserables” 17. Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov” 18. Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” 19. Joyce’s “Ulysses” 20. O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh” ---
**Author:** ![K.Daniel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/50afbb/32.png) [@K.Daniel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K.Daniel)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2002, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790/20 "2002-11-26T05:49:41Z")
where I would start… 1.) 1984, by Orwell 2.) Lord of the Flies, by Golding 3.) Fahrenheit 451, by Bradbury 4.) Atlas Shrugged, by Rand 5.) Walden, by Thoreau 6.) The Journals of Lewis and Clark 7.) Demian, by Hesse 8.) The Invisible Man, by Ellison 9.) Gulliver’s Travels, by Swift 10.) The Wealth of Nations, by Smith [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-have-to-have-read-to-be-considered-well-read/138790.md?page=2)