If you're paying attention to what people are saying about the books "everyone" is reading, then sure, you can probably skip them. Lots of popular books I never read because I got 90%+ of the content from a podcast interview. But this doesn't answer the question of what you should read. Simply "not the popular stuff" could land you at an amazingly insightful but ignored classic, or a celebrity gossip tabloid you picked up at the grocery store checkout.