Below is the list of the 30 books that were part of the Siena survey, as mentioned in this story here. I thought it would be interesting to see how many of the 30 books listed I had actually read, but I am confused by the list because it includes all the plays and poems by Shakespeare as one thing, the novels of Faulkner are also one thing and so, too, is the Declaration of Independence. What gives?
Scanning the list below, I can actually say I’ve read parts or even all of each item listed. But I don’t think it is reading this list of books that make me well-read; rather, it is coming to understand that the “canon” cannot be a list, it has to be a guiding principle or principles of determining the value of texts.
In that sense, to be well-read means to be open to understanding how texts can shape thought or describe experiences that need to be voiced. In other words, you could read all the texts listed and still not be well-read. The books listed can be thought of as foundational for Western thought and, perhaps, American thought, as well. But the U.S. is a pluralistic society, and the Siena survey’s list needs to be updated to reflect the importance of, say, Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” or the Epic of Gilgamesh or Carlos Bulosan’s “America is in the Heart” or Bodhidharma and his school of Zen Buddhism. Of course, lists are finite, and many more texts can be added. The point isn’t the books themselves, but how they reflect ways of thinking or ways of experiencing the world.
What follows is what I’ve read and the list of 30 books in the survey.
