I think about this a lot, actually--there's so much culture that's endured over the past 300 years (just to stick with stuff in reasonably modern language, for example) that I could never catch up with it all. So why waste time on stuff that was written in this century? But then I wonder if I'm missing out on contemporary culture...
The book “House Made of Dawn” is one of my all time favorites.
Thanks for the tip!