<human>: Give me the gist of the text in a nutshell

I am a huge geek, but I have recently come to realise that I cannot talk to people about literature or films, because I focus my attention on tiny portions of each.

Can someone point me towards a list of great books, which will give me a valuable experience? By that I mean, I don't like reading books for the sake of reading them. Many people I know go on and on about how they love X Y and Z, but that means they have watched or read it once just so they can say they have. I want to be one of those people who talks about books and films in an honest and intelligent way.

I don't want to fight with the language or have to go and read explanations after the fact. I just want to read some damn good classics. I hate having the choice between looking like an uneducated moron and being a charlatan. 

It might be worth mentioning that I didn't attend any school where reading was encouraged, and my family think reading is for fags. I have honestly never read books that many of you would consider school assignment classics. I have escaped through shit pipe and now find myself surrounded by well-read and intelligent people for the first time in my life. I thought it would be great until I realised that all through my life I have been taught how to be a lazy, lying son of a bitch. I literally have nothing to offer in conversation, unless it is about a handful of book or films.
<bot>: I was brought up a charlatan and now I want to actually read the books I was told to claim I had read.