I've come across this kind of advice many times and I've learned to identify it for what it is: a recipe for a boring and ossified intellectual life. What work

I've come across this kind of advice many times and I've learned to identify it for what it is: a recipe for a boring and ossified intellectual life. What works best, I think, is to go with what deeply interests you while periodically challenging yourself with things that are out of your comfort zone. This way you can start anywhere - in my case it was Harry Potter, but it can be anything else: LOTR, Stephen King, anything. A possible progression would look smth like: Harry Potter -> the Hobbit -> LOTR -> A Song of Ice and Fire etc. Each step is a bit more challenging than the previous. Once you get to ASOIAF the world is your oyster: you can focus on history, sociology etc. Always challenge yourself, always approach things critically, always pursue things that spark your curiosity, not some static list of "great books". With enough time you'll get to some of the great books anyway, but you'll do it in a way that makes sense for you. Also, use books as tools, make notes, fold pages etc. Buy cheap paperbacks, use them, re-use them. Become a professional learner, not a coffee-table "intellectual" full of other people's pre-digested ideas.