Lit-Ra-Chur - BTT

Is it time for Booking Through Thursday already? Time goes by way to fast. Anyway, here is the question of the week:

When somebody mentions “literature,” what’s the first thing you think of? (Dickens? Tolstoy? Shakespeare?)
Do you read “literature” (however you define it) for pleasure? Or is it something that you read only when you must?

I guess "literature" tends to be synonymous with the classics in my mind. Books that have aged enough to be considered timeless and truly worth reading (whatever that happens to mean.) As for whether I read "literature," that comes with a resounding YES. Some of my favorite books are classics, from Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen to the Sherlock Holmes mysteries by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; from Wuthering Heights to Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. I have often chosen to read "literature," not because I had to, but because it is enjoyable reading.