Please, sir, may I have some heavy artillery?

I read this Metafilter thread on recommendations for books that are good introductions to the field and was reminded of a former colleague of mine who had recently been discharged from the Navy. He was finishing a distance learning degree and complained that the university was making him complete a literature survey course before graduation. "I'm studying computer science," he said indignantly. "Why do I have to know about the cannons [sic] of Western Literature?"
"*Cannons*?" I asked, thinking I hadn't quite heard him correctly.
"Yeah," he said, "you know, like, the big guns! Dickens and stuff!"