No, but the notion of an "essential reading" list correlates really well with a certain demographic, and OP's actual content correlates even better. There can be a list of media familiarity with which is more or less required to fit in a community or to get a job at a particular company or to pass a class, and I suppose you (like Telika presumably did, judging by his post history) can compile a personal list of media which made you (him) the person you are. But a normal and sane person wouldn't put anything on the "essential reading" list without a qualifier.

I believe this is where I call you a retard and shine a batman light for Fables.

I don't know about the "essentiality" of this list, it stands to reason that a person can go through life without having ever heard of any of these books, but having read them (or at least being aware of their existence) seems to be a fairly accurate indicator of someone reasonably well educated and able to function at a high level in modern society.

This goes even for the books that one may not necessarily enjoy or take at face value. I for one don't believe in any gods, but I still consider the Bible to be required reading for all. The history and culture of our civilization is (unfortunately) inseparable from Abrahamic monotheism and so regardless of how one feels about it, in order to adequately perceive one's surroundings, one has no choice but to be familiar with this seminal work.

P.S. — Starmaker, you let me down. After reading your original comment, I didn't even look up what "incel" was, because I just assumed it's some sort of bird and I don't much care about birds. I trusted you, but now I have to question everything I believe in. Why and how do you even know these things?

1. Which version?

2. Physics (among other things) is really important for our culture and civilization, too. And yet, people manage just fine without having read (e.g.) Principia Mathematica. Knowing biblical myths and "getting" artistic allusions is as valuable as knowing Asian myths individual Pokemons were inspired by.

3. Modern Christianity isn't just the Bible. It's also the writings of early theologians such as Augustine (of Hippo), later myths, multiple medieval / industrial reformers, 20th century politics, and (probably most importantly) art and pop culture. If you want to debate (easy mode) a KJV-only Christian, pointing out and demanding chapter and verse isn't going to get you anywhere.

4. Christianity isn't the only influential religion. Even the Bible has the abridged edition and its extensive comment section, a remake, and fanfiction; there are also several independent competing franchises, and it can be argued that a Western person learns the basic myths of Christianity by osmosis and it's the other religions which need active studying.

Finally, awareness of and actually reading are two very different beasts, and people can't quite grasp the scale of the difference, especially with all of the pretentious bullshitting going on.

It actually came up recently, when in between witnessing someone suffering through the last Harry Potter novel and a fan expression admiration for Pratchett and the recent AAA release here on GOG, I realized Anglophones, by and large, don't possess the minimal knowledge of classical mythology that is expected of Russian Hardhat preschoolers. Like, how do people manage to have a mysterious villain named "the Oracle" and a character named "Delphi" and expect to maintain suspense? WHARBLEGARBLE RAGE!!!1! And somehow, no compilation of classical myths (nor for that matter Decline and Fall) is on the OP's list.

As an anonymized but personal dig, there was a dude who used a major preclassical god in a creative work and went on record getting his sphere of influence dead wrong.

Even the notion of major writers is very region-specific. The same guy told me off for not reading Nabokov (whose surname he kept misspelling in a way that cannot be accounted for by either QWERTY or DVORAK). Well excuse me, but Nabokov isn't big here. He's mostly known for Lolita, and maybe it was an important novel back when it was published, but these days the internets exist and if I need a glimpse into the mind of a child molester for some reason (vomit aid?), I don't have to resort to fiction. Similarly, Russians consider Maugham a major writer, yet half his works on Wikipedia are redlinks. The US goes wild for Les Mis, yet in Russia it is far, far second to Notre Dame and people keep confusing the plot with that of a random Dickens novel, and (I'll just quote from Wikipedia because I can't French, maybe Telika can weigh in how it is among Francophones) Figures. The #1 Russian writer in Russia is Pushkin, also best known as a poet (so much that badly educated but pretentious people, when asked, will name someone else so as not to appear too mainstream).

And that's how trying to engage with a far better argument and list than the OP. His specific list is a wtf pileup. Historical / political documents: Why no Magna Carta? Why no 95 Theses? Philosophy: Why no Zarathustra? Fiction: holy shit where do I even start? Even the "highbrow" (educational) portion of the list can be iteratively expanded to a countably infinite size (hey, where's The Beauty of Fractals?) so that the notion of essential reading loses all meaning; compiling a single list, even for one country, is at best misguided. Including entertainment on the list strikes me as actively evil.

(Which reminds me:
(1) Telika forgot The Neverending Story
(2) I can't find a post of his on how the movie of it (which Americans tend to love) is basically Hitler -- yet another illustration that culture is relative, quality is relative and essential is meaningless)


This damn forum.

Ah, no no, I wouldn't say that. In France, Hugo is less known for his poetry than for his major novels, such as Notre Dame de Paris or Les Misérables (no hierarchy between these two), which are often schoolclass material. And are very very much part of common pop culture, well familiar to even those who (like me) haven't read them.

Hey. Was I that harsh ? No, the film is... mosty sweet (reminds me that it's been years since I've re-listened its deliciously cheesy title song). But yeah, it's got severe flaws compared to the book. It's focused on its least great half, ends stupidly, and, as often with movies, features a nondescript kid instead of the atypically overweight hero of the novel. So, gets its share of facepalm. But so does Lynch's Dune (which I adore) and Polanski's 9th Gate (which I consider okay, even though it doesn't do justice to Club Dumas).

I may have been more vocal about the sequels, though.

Also, if I may. I have the impression that you're biased by the OP's particularly creepy content. Beyond it, I for one am quite fond of lists of works people consider "essential". Of course it's subjective (it's implicitely "what you consider essential") and of course it can tell a lot about the list's author. Still, I gladly browse lists of thematic "essentials" (random website's "essential graphic novels", or academic "essential reads" discussions, or even Bernard Pivot's outdated but fascinating "Ideal Library"), and, in particular, I'm always eager to check lists provided by people whose intelligence and sensitivity I already esteem.

I think it is a different question from "what books made you yourself" (I grew up influenced by authors that I haven't mentionned : François Cavanna, Yvan Delporte, Henri Vernes, Henri Broch, René Goscinny, Marcel Gotlib, Jean-Marc Reiser...), as the books one would consider "essential" can be much newer reads. It's also partially different from mere favorites, although there's some overlap. I indeed adored The Neverending Story, and also Dune, and the Hillerman novels before they became too repetitive, and I was much fond of Stephen King, and Lovecraft, Matheson, Fajardie, Ray, etc... I'm not sure I'd call them essential reads. Even though I did try to mix serious essays with some pure fun-based "omg must reads". It's a slightly different angle. Maybe being good and fun doesn't necessarily, in itself, make something "special" enough, or fundamental enough, for a dramatic "don't die without having experienced this".

But still, I've forgotten Douglas Adams, and that's pure fundamental "don't die without having experienced it" material.

Anyway, all this to say, I was hoping for the input of more people - while you discourage it. Given the current gog demographics, maybe we're lucky this thread wasn't more succesful, but just for the input of a handful of interesting people (what reads they do consider important), I was looking forward to read more contributions.

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That wasn't from me, don't know why "morolf" is listed as author there. I'm definitely not retarded.
As for the rest, I don't really understand what your problem is...and I won't waste any time trying to understand.

I love you and want to move to Korea with you, you're the fluffiest.

Like Telika pointed out, your quote is somehow wrong as Victor Hugo most known works in France are still "Les misérables" and "The hunchback of Notre-Dame". It's even up to the point that "Cosette" can be commonly used to nickname a girl/woman who has a poor life.

As a general rule of thumb, always take what's written on Wikipedia with a grain of salt as the point of views can diverge from one country/language to another (like when I compared this week-end the pages on Julius Evola between the English, French and Italian versions)

Because as already pointed out, the notion of "essential" is already confusing.

If I had to take it litteraly, I would consider ir as a mix of cultural and practical knowledge that would benefit each man/woman regardless of its backgrounds/interests. As such the good old Encyclopedia Universalis (which I enjoyed reading at the library back when Internet wasn't a thing) would be a required reading along with many DIY books about gardening, electricity, etc.

If we had to consider "essentials" by thematics, then we get into a grey area where "objectivity" and subjectivity are somehow mixed up. The OP placed the Bible highly, while in my personal library shelves, it's just a book besides the Quran and many other books various mythologies of different ages and places in the world.

It's actually funny that you mentioned the example list "essential graphic novels" as it reminded me of a book like that which was about "graphic novels" (in the meaning of novels done in a graphic way and with adult thematics and narration) citing works by Art Spiegelman or Craig Thompson but totally not mentioning Jiro Taniguchi (RIP), probably because it was probably too "foreign" for the author or the potential reader (the book was in English so I guess it was aimed for US/UK audience only).

All in all, for "essential by thematics", I have the faith/belief that the potential reader is intelligent enough to check the bibliographies at the end of his/her book (or in the footnotes) or checking the catalogs of publishers (like the French collection "Que sais-je?") to make his/her own choices.
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And well, to put up a list, even if I don't know what's the actual intent :o)

- Yukio Mishima : "Sun And Steel"
- Hugo Pratt : "Corto Maltese" (the whole series)
- Nietzsche: all major works
- Hergé: "Tintin" (of course ^o^)