What Does It Mean to Be Well Read?

I was trying to describe my friend to someone else a few days ago, and I called him “the most well-read person I know.” Even though I said it, I’m not entirely sure what I meant–the term “well-read” has always had a hazy, nebulous character to me. It lies somewhere near “reads a lot of classics” and left of “knows about obscure authors I’ve never heard of, especially ones from other countries” and generally around “understands Everything in All The Books and therefore has something interesting to add to almost every conversation” and perhaps even “reads For Fun what most of us read For Guilt And Bragging Rights.” It’s the sort of thing I couldn’t define, but could indentify when I saw it.

So what does it actually mean to be well-read? With over 129 million published books in the world (according to Google), what is the formula that allows you to select a few thousand in order to attain well-readness before you die? What about genre? What about number of books read? We all know someone who reads three or more books a week, but are they books that add to that someone’s well-read factor? And then there are the problematic “Read These 17,583 Before You Die And You Will Be The Well Readinest Person In Your Suburb” lists.

WordNet, Princeton’s English lexical database, defines well read as “well informed or deeply versed through reading.” I agree with this on the surface, but it leaves the gate open for only reading about one thing in your life, ever. You can be well read in medieval poetry written by monks who rode donkeys only on Tuesdays. You can be well read about vampires and the various incarnations of their girlfriends, be they surly or Southern. In my case, I am “well informed and deeply versed” in Victorian-era Western literature because I have read mostly classics in my life. But I don’t think this definition covers a general concept of well readhood.