Read what you enjoy. Don't worry about reading "relevant", "recommended", or "classic" books, unless that really is what you enjoy. Life is too short.
Sometimes it is worth a bit of a slog. I think I was around 12 when I first read Dune; I almost gave up on it but I kept going because people said it was so good. I got into it after about 75 pages.
On the other hand, I've never been able to finish anything by James Joyce.
James Joyce seems like troll nowadays writing endlessly describing the scenery and what not and thats 75 pages in the book. By then the 3 characters have smeared butter on their bread or something like that.
I wouldnt have enjoyed dune that much if I hadnt seen parts of the movie allready and so I knew how to imagine some things.
I have all dune novels but I read only the first one.
To me they dont seem to be so brilliantly written and by that I mean the style is often not so visual that I can imagine everything.
PKD is like that and also Stanislav Lem, I cant imagine them to be people who think very visually.
Anyways I think reading fiction is really important because you can pick up information effortlessly and it probably makes your imagination better.
This is why you should learn this as a child, so that you can learn how to see images and scenery in front of you while reading.
Im not sure if somebody gets this who starts reading a lot of fiction in their adult life.
I wouldn't read a book like Twilight, unless I am going with a mindset that this is just pure entertainment that offers little intellectual stimulation. Nor Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings (great novel, but it's not going to really help me all that much in the real world).
Nope life is too short for such a bullshit, if you want to read a few pages please pirate the ebook or something and dont spend much time and money on it.
Enjoying trash because its so trashy is funny for about 10 minutes in my case.
Edited by machete234, 20 September 2013 - 11:13 AM.