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!
Is that a book? Is it any good? If it's good, maybe they'll make a movie (or three) out of it. :^\
But if it hadn't been for us Virginians, y'all would still be speakin' English...okay enough of that.
I know you're well read. Much better than most of today's college age crowd. I'm really okay that you don't like GWTW. But I still think that culturally one needs to have read it. If nothing else for a understanding of southern culture and the mindset of the time. Same reason everyone needs to read Huckleberry Finn (even with "that word" in it).