"What books should I read to feel like I'm well-read?" read a question on Quora, a portal where people share their knowledge and where questions are answered by those who have the most unique insights on a given topic. The response of Christina Hartmann, a writer who has given up the legal profession, was: "Those of you who want to achieve the glorified title of 'well-read': it's about breadth rather than depth." So which 30 books will give you that necessary breadth?
In order to feel 'read' in the field of literature, we must first divide the books into categories. So, that means yes we read books from different genres, from different time periods and books that deal with topics from different angles.
Classics that should definitely not be missing from the list
Homer, The Odyssey
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Ramayana (India)
Luo Guanzhog, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Yu Hua, To live
Chinua Achebe, Disintegration
Dystopia: Books That Tell About Our Greatest Fears and Nightmares
George Orwell, 1984
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Margaret Atwood, A Girl's Story
Science fiction and fantasy: the "geek" cousins of the classics
JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Isaac Asimov, The Foundation series
William Gibson, The Neuromancer
Slovenian novels: timeless works that defined Slovenian literature
Josip Jurčič, Tenth brother
Vladimir Bartol, Alamut
Janez Jalen, Beavers
Dear Jančar, I saw her that night
Goran Vojnović, Čefurji raus!
Literary Overkill: When People Can't Believe You've Read Them
James Joyce, Ulysses
David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jets
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
Immigrant Literature: The Magical Experience of Immigration and Assimilation into a New Culture
Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies
Amy Tan, Happy Women's Club
Julia Alvarez, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
Satire: The list has to include some giggles
Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
Joseph Heller, Hook 22
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Popular Fiction: The Literary Sins We All Commit Now and Then
George RR Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire
Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
EL James, 50 Shades of Grey
