Here’s an interesting guide to reading: Books That Make You Dumb. Virgil Griffith has made a graph of based on the 10 most popular books listed for Facebook at certain universities. The basic equation that he uses is Books <=> Colleges <=> Average SAT Scores.
Much of this is predictable: For instance, Lolita, 100 Years of Solitude, Crime and Punishment (my personal favorite) occupy the highest end of the chart; and Zane, B More Careful, and True to the Game take up the bottom part. There are, however, some surprises: For example, The Alchemist is oddly high for what I would expect, and, by Griffith’s calculation, “smarter” people write “The Bible” as opposed to “The Holy Bible”.
Leif Johnson 