Everyone should read canonical literature. Literature is objectively and by far the most important of all human domains... it should be everybody’s central bailiwick. Everyone should read everything on this list. It’s crucial that you read the best and only the best. Because if you don’t read the best that has been written, you never learn how to think. And if you never learn how to think, you get—

Why the western canon specifically and not a more international one ? Aren't you depriving yourself of books written in other parts of the world ? And why would you specifically choose the ones that made it to that list ?

But in general I would agree, reading influential/established books can introduce you to new concepts or make concepts you half-know more clear.

I myself need to do a lot more reading.

Kanye West is the most important rapper of all time and the most essential artist of the twenty-first century so far, of any art form. (If you want to prove me wrong: Please name a rap artist you think has a better discography, or a greater artist of the twenty-first century.) The Beach Boys are the best band to emerge from the sixties. Their corpus even beats out the Beatles’s.

Why ?

There is no such thing as racism, sexism, homophobi-ism, Islamphobi-ism, deadbeat-dad-ism, or anti-Semitism; there is only love or hate, right or wrong, good or evil. There is nothing inherently morally wrong with slavery. There is nothing inherently wrong with adults being in romantic relationships with children.

N'wah