Quote:
Originally Posted by Sirtel
I don't consider myself well-read, although I've read many classics in my younger days. Nor do I care a whit about such a label. I read for pure escapism and am perfectly content to admit it. For this reason my reading material is almost entirely genre fiction nowadays, with an occasional nonfiction thrown in. A word "literary" (as in literary fiction) makes me run without looking back. I even avoid genre books which have that dreaded word stuck in their description.  The story and characters are vastly more important to me than the quality of writing. |
Like you, I read some of the classics in my younger days. However, in my adult life my main reading has been mysteries.
I suppose one could consider oneself well-read within a specific genre (for example, a person might have read a wide variety of authors within a genre such as mysteries or science fiction) but I think "well-read" as a general term would imply that one has read a wide variety of books, including classics but perhaps also including at least a sampling of a variety of genres.
We should probably start a new discussion.