Oh, stop being such a yankee...
There are books that every "literate" person should read. I'm slowly working my way through them (and wish I had a better list). But GWTW is one that should be read.
I still need to read "From Here to Eternity."
And I'm also very literate, but I don't really like most classic works. Oh, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, Tolkien, Lewis, Chaucer... hmm, there's something I notice about this list. My fun-reading books are more American, though; I would put certain writers on the classics list who are not on there because they haven't been dead long enough and also wrote SF.
Besides, Marcel Proust is one of those writers I've seen on the "be literate and read this" lists. So those lists are flawed. The only thing one should read to be literate is Lord of the Rings. Hey! Why don't we start a thread about that!