For the brave enough who wants to get better at reading, I can recommend (see Disclaimer below) Mortimer Adlers' "How to Read a Book" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book ). In the book, he talks about how to read a book properly (in summary, as suggested in the article, read TOC first, take notes, become active etc.) and the books one should read from the Western culture. Britannica sells the compilation with the title "Great Books of the Western World". (I am not in US, so excuse me if this is just common knowledge there, and many houses in US are filled with this collection.)

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, although I liked the book, I have been unable to apply the methods he suggested, due basically to "leaning".