Literary Snob Book Test: Have You Read 10/15?

If You’ve Read 10/15 of These Books, You Might Be a Literary Snob

Look, we all know that reader. The one who dramatically sighs every time someone calls The Great Gatsby “romantic.” The one who says, “Oh, I only read literary fiction,” while side-eyeing your A Court of Thorns and Roses paperback like it’s contaminated. The one who wouldn’t be caught dead in the romance section unless they’re hate-reading Colleen Hoover to complain about it later.

And if you don’t know that reader… it’s probably you.

So let’s put your book snobbery to the test. If you’ve read 10 or more of these, congratulations! You’re officially unbearable at parties.

The Literary Snob Starter Pack:

📖 You Have Definitely Read These (and Probably Have Strong Opinions About Them):

✅ Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace – Did you actually read the footnotes, or did you just pretend? Be honest.
✅ Ulysses by James Joyce – If you say you understood it on the first try, you’re lying.
✅ Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky – Nothing says “I’m deep and tortured” like existential guilt and murder.
✅ The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky – If you’ve read both Dostoevsky entries, you might be in too deep.
✅ The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner – The ultimate test of patience and possibly sanity.
✅ Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon – You love it when books make you feel stupid.
✅ The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov – Talking cats and the devil in Soviet Russia? You definitely have opinions on this.
✅ The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath – You probably had an intense phase in high school.
✅ Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov – If you’ve ever uttered the words “but it’s about language, not the content,” you’re 100% that guy.
✅ Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy – Nothing impresses literary men more than hyper-violent nihilism.

📚 Deep Cuts That Separate the Casuals from the Elitists:

✅ Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov – You love literary puzzles and will fight anyone who doesn’t appreciate its genius.
✅ The Recognitions by William Gaddis – No one made you read this, and that says a lot.
✅ 2666 by Roberto Bolaño – Oh, you’ve read The Savage Detectives too? Damn.
✅ If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino – You think books should be “meta,” don’t you?
✅ The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil – At this point, I’m just impressed.

Your Literary Snob Scorecard:

🔹 0-3 Books – You’re safe. You probably still have fun when you read.
🔹 4-7 Books – You have literary snob tendencies but haven’t fully succumbed. You own a tote bag with a quote from Jane Eyre on it.
🔹 8-10 Books – You’ve definitely had a heated argument about postmodernism. Also, your Goodreads reviews are… aggressive.
🔹 11+ Books – Your dream dinner party guest list includes at least two dead authors, and you definitely look down on people who read mass-market paperbacks.

Can You Still Be Saved?

Maybe. Try reading something purely for fun—no existential dread, no footnotes, no intense subtext that requires three hours of Wikipedia research. Just some low-stakes joy. I hear romance novels exist. Or maybe something with a dragon.

Or don’t. You’re already too far gone. Just embrace your fate, start smoking a pipe, and yell about Kafka at dinner parties.