It's probably an urban myth, 90% of the people I know (from the UK) will have read more than 6 of these books. Hmm... My brother hasn't though and I doubt his girlfriend has either, my housemate as well maybe but I think everybody else will have.

A lot of those books I could quite honestly have lived quite happily never having read at all. Some of them were horribly horribly dull. Now if it was a list of 100 sf&f books....