I’ve seen hundreds of book lists: Books you should read before you die; Books that should be on your book shelves (hopefully you’re still allowed to take them out and read them); The best books of the 20^th century; Books that your children should read … you can see where this is going.

I have to admit that in terms of lists, I am not doing that well.  In the “how many of the books you should have read by now. Yes, you!” quizzes popping daily on the Internet, I probably reach a score around 50%.  I always imagine my highschool librarian scowling at me, as I’ve read a lot, but apparently not the ‘must-read’ types of books.  And I have to confess, I have forgotten quite a lot from my earlier reading.

To be fair, school can do that to you: you read so much…