No, I get what you're saying. I don't think it's a badge of superiority, though I do think there's something problematic if someone reads through the list and has never even heard of half of these. I still read for pleasure now that I'm out of school, and quite a few of the books that I like haven't been included on the list. I still don't read very heavily OUT of the Eurocentric genre, but that's a question of personal preference over anything else.
It does raise an interesting question about the criteria used to create this list, particularly when there are at least two (pretty big, imo) errors on it -- the differentiation of "Hamlet" from "Complete Works of Shakespeare" and the differentiation of "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" from "Chronicles of Narnia." I don't think it's an be-all, end-all List o' Literacy, by any stretch of the imagination.
...That said, I also think that quite a few of the books on the list are overrated. XD
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-07-01 05:22 pm (UTC)No, I get what you're saying. I don't think it's a badge of superiority, though I do think there's something problematic if someone reads through the list and has never even heard of half of these. I still read for pleasure now that I'm out of school, and quite a few of the books that I like haven't been included on the list. I still don't read very heavily OUT of the Eurocentric genre, but that's a question of personal preference over anything else.
It does raise an interesting question about the criteria used to create this list, particularly when there are at least two (pretty big, imo) errors on it -- the differentiation of "Hamlet" from "Complete Works of Shakespeare" and the differentiation of "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" from "Chronicles of Narnia." I don't think it's an be-all, end-all List o' Literacy, by any stretch of the imagination.
...That said, I also think that quite a few of the books on the list are overrated. XD