If I believe Time magazine, I’m an illiterate bum.
All-TIME 100 Best Nonfiction Books
Politics and war, science and sports, memoir and biography — there’s a great big world of nonfiction books out there just waiting to be read. We picked the 100 best and most influential written in English since 1923, the beginning of TIME … magazine
I’ve read about ten of these, and they’re all in three categories: History, Politics and Sports. Most of the others I’ve heard of but never felt compelled to read.
It says nothing about being illiterate. It just says these are the “best and most influential” nonfiction works of the past 80+ years. I am not a big consumer of non-fiction, but I’ve read 26 of the books on that list. I blame it partly on my women’s studies minor in college ….
I looked at the list. I’ve read part of What Color is Your Parachute?. I own Our Bodies, Growing Older and have read part of it, but not the original. The rest of them, I mostly haven’t read. Only when we get to the Science category do I begin to find books I’ve read all the way through:
A Brief History of Time
Double Helix
Elements of Style (Strunk & White)
Guns, Germs and Steel
The Civil War (S. Foote)
Hiroshima
The rest were all “best sellers” in their day. I have a practice of not reading best sellers (with occasional exceptions) unless they’re still considered vital ten years later. Like you, I’ve heard of them but never felt compelled to read them (especially anything by Francis Fukushima!)