alpha0's comment touches on one of the main threads I have been considering. The Bible and Shakespeare are types of literature that impart cultural literacy. You can't help but notice after you have read a handful of Greek plays references to those plays which well educated/intelligent people make to help illustrate all manner of situations. All of a sudden you get the joke and feel richer for it intelectualy and regret the time spent in ignorant darkness. What seemed before to be intellectual snobbery is realized to be a pretty insightful way to compare one thing to another for the sake of understanding.

Cultural literacy is pretty powerful stuff, unlike so many things, you don't realize what you have till you get it, and it can't be taken away. Been making my own list (haha, after my attack on lists) of books that deliver cultural literacy.

Proposed reading list: The Bible (pretty much any holy books will deliver some pervasive cultural understanding). Major Shakespearean Tragedies Handful of Greek plays Plato's Republic The Iliad and Odyssey Atlas Shrugged Cannery Row The Jungle Some kind of summery of Wealth of Nations and the Communist Manifesto

I have some odd books that I think should be added, Stendhal's "Red and the Black" is something I would like my kid to read but probably never made it on a must read book list that wasn't written by an avowed socialist. What would you add to a cultural literacy book list?