[Poppaea]

Am ashamed to have found five! authors on the snippet I have not read yet.

Powell, Cather, Woolf, Murdoch, Borges.

On the other hand I have read a lot of authors regarded as indispensable in world and German literature that will make up for my omissions, like Cervanes, Sterne, Hesse, Mann and others.

Yes, I think it is important to be well read. Literature tends to have a second layer woven into the books that you will only discover and understand when you have read the books referred to. There are puns and jokes you will not get until you are familiar with the cornerstones of literature and thus you will miss a lot of fun.

You can be entertained by Dan Brown, not everyone will find the same entertainment in Umberto Ecos "Foucault's Pendulum" unless your mind has been prepared to make sense of the hints. But then it will create a kind of deep and rich tapestry before your very eyes that is stunning.

The quality of literature is easy to determine by certain standards. Apart from these standards there is a simple method to discern the trash from the gem yourself. I guess anyone can determine it themselves when they are honest. The plots of classical YA books like "Treasure Island" or "The Count of Monte Christo" or "The Musketeers", one is able to tell for the rest of ones lives, this does not hold true for say No. 103 The Three ??? or any other bestselling book you read at that age.

Also arts are interweaved. There is no understanding of the classic paintings unless you know the Bible stories they depict. How are you to grasp what Picasso's Guernica is about without some knowledge of history.

I am sure one can lead a happy life without being knowleadgeable, but I for one prefer to make the most of the gift of reading and ownership of intelligence.