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

[McDreamy]

just wondered

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!

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

Agreed with zippi on Cryptonomicon.

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.

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 !

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

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

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!

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

I can't read Stephen King anymore, too scary. I actually had to leave the house to find some company before I could finish The Shining. scary scary scary

maybe 'which books should one have read to hold one's own in a Radio 4 book discussion'

I've just finished The Stand for a book club I'm in......not my favourite book.

I've never read Stephen King, precisely for that reason!! I can't even watch the films let alone imagine for myself ina book!

Dante (But of course )
Proust? (Perhaps just a leeetle smidgeon)
Madame Bovary for sure

[Thanks to beansmum for mentioning Primo Levi - saves me sounding like a stuck record]

Finnegan's Wake
Or if you prefer, you could just read some of Cod's posts on MN, they make approximately the same amount of sense!
I think "well-read" is a term one should never use to describe oneself, only to describe other people!

Does having such titles on one's bookshelf count as being 'well read'?

Bigmouth - yesyesyesyesyes Gaskell counts!!!

I don't think it is the reading that counts its the being able to discuss them afterwards..which I alwats fall down on.

And not just novels.
Poetry too.
I reckon everyone should be familiar with (ie not necessarily have read every word of)
Canterbury Tales
Paradise Lost
Donne
Marvell
Shelley
Keats
Emily Dickinson
Auden
Eliot
Larkin
Ted Hughes
Sylvia Plath
Seamus Heaney
and of course
Shakespeare

But of course, suedonim! They don't have to be real books either, just fake covers will do!

Ooh thanks Zippi Diary of a nobody/kinflicks and cryptonomicon look great. [amile]

Or what about this, Chipmonkey? Books

LOL @ zippitippitoes - I agree with the richard and judy thing, I actively avoid all the ones with their stickers on

E M Forster, Howards End and Passage to India.
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Carson McCullers
William Trevor

Feck it, suedonim, why didn't you tell me about that before? I have spent a fortune on books!!!