Literature and Preface to Culture and Anarchy

While reading these two articles I found myself uninterested and sometimes bored. It wasn't that they were hard to read or very lengthy it was that I kept finding myself asking why am I reading this? and what is the purpose of reading the preface of a book when we aren't even going to read the book? Throughout the preface the bible was mentioned many times for how it is such an influential piece of literature. I think that yes, its true that this is influential, but I also found myself wondering what other literature is as influential to people who are not religious. I could not think of one off the top of my head and that is the question I would like to ask all of you, is there any other piece of literature that has been more influential and more well known as the bible?