Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Original poster

Which books should one have read to be able to call oneself "well read'?

58 replies

McDreamy · 02/04/2008 21:54

just wondered

OP posts:
JODIEhavingababy · 02/04/2008 22:29

Bigmouth, I'm with you on that one!!!!

JODIEhavingababy · 02/04/2008 22:28

These days I can't concentrate too much so anything with long complicated names really throw me! I hope that doesn't make me sound thick but I never remember who's who, and who's done what!!!! I've only read 'chick lit' since DS has been born, but recently printed off the BBC top 100 reads so I can catch up!

janeite · 02/04/2008 22:26

Sorry, Beansmum - I wasn't trying to sound snobby, honest.

My favourite authors are Jane Austen and Stephen King, so some variety there!

bigmouthstrikesagain · 02/04/2008 22:26

I think of myself as a compulsive reader - eg. if sitting down anywhere I read whatever is available so old copies of Knitting monthly, packaging, instruction manuals, ingredient lists anything ... not necessarily improving material - it is just like the way I kick my leg and fidget I cannot relax and let mind or body relax.

I do agree that the term 'well read' is a little !

beansmum · 02/04/2008 22:24

there has to be some kind of breadth to your reading if you want to be considered well read. so not just classics.

Perhaps some Philip K Dick, Asimov...
umm Primo Levi...
some modern novels in translation, Japanese maybe?
I just read an amazing graphic novel by an Iranian woman, Marjane Satrapi. I think it's important not to be snobby about what you read.

CoteDAzur · 02/04/2008 22:23

Agreed with zippi on Cryptonomicon.

JODIEhavingababy · 02/04/2008 22:20

I just like reading, anything from threads on MN (just being nosy) to any book...

janeite · 02/04/2008 22:19

Yes, it's not something you could call yourself without sounding like a jumped up idiot. Widely read yes but not "well read".

I read all sorts of crap, as well as the "proper" stuff!

scanner · 02/04/2008 22:17

trollope

Original poster
McDreamy · 02/04/2008 22:16

Good point Pointy Dog, I think maybe it's a term used to describe others rather than yourself.

OP posts:
zippitippitoes · 02/04/2008 22:15

cryptonomicon

QuintessentialShadows · 02/04/2008 22:15

Gosh, this takes me back, I remember the summer of sweet sixteen, where I refused to leave the house till I had read the entire Steinbeck collection, all of Hamsun, Ibsen, and Camilla Collet. Well, the weather was awful, and what a sad geek am I.....

bigmouthstrikesagain · 02/04/2008 22:14

I'm reading 'North and South' Elizabeth gaskell at the mo - does that count??

(Have read, works of Wilde, Marx, The Gormenghast Trilogy and Mr Pye as I love Mervyn Peake, 1984, lots of Dickens, fair amount of Shakespeare, DH Lawrence etc. but still have a long way to go to be properly well read I think - the Russian greats scare the pants off me for a start). I think there is a lot of 'genre' fiction (sci fi) that is unfairly ignored by the literary mafia - and not treated seriously as literature as a result - authors like Asimov, Wells and Atwood are not given the weight they deserve.

pointydog · 02/04/2008 22:13

I have never heard anyone describe themselves as well-read and hope I never do

BBBee · 02/04/2008 22:13

timewaster letters

CantSleepWontSleep · 02/04/2008 22:13

Clearly I'm not at all well read. Have only read 3 of the books mentioned so far!

BBBee · 02/04/2008 22:12

lord of the flies

southeastastra · 02/04/2008 22:11

watching films helps - good for discoving writers.

BBBee · 02/04/2008 22:11

IMO
iris murdoch
virginia woolf
albert camus
oscar wilde
dostoyevsky
kafka
orwell

um um um

steinbeck

um um um

of mice and men

um um

I think it is very personal what books people think of as essential.

I HATE lord of the rings.

MarsLady · 02/04/2008 22:10

You've got to read East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Brilliant!

AnotherFineMess · 02/04/2008 22:10

Ooh, I'm feeling smug, I've read most of these. When I was 15...only get chance to read the back of the toilet cleaner these days...

janeite · 02/04/2008 22:09

Yes to HP. I'd add The Hobbit too, although I suspect many people wouldn't.

janeite · 02/04/2008 22:08

Oh gosh yes to "Of Mice And Men" and "Mocking Bird". I suppose The Grapes Of Wrath ought to be there too, although it is so depressing.

Love In The Time Of Cholera?

The complete works of Shakespeare?

MrsWeasley · 02/04/2008 22:06

JK Rowling

MarsLady · 02/04/2008 22:05