I agree it is not really controversial, I don't think any other explanation is credible. And it really calls into question their assertion that at least one person there has read every book on the list. They love these books, yet no one there cared enough to write a few sentences about them?

well, maybe no one felt informed enough to write this, so it was outsourced to the llm (imposter syndrom) or it was pure laziness.

The trick is that this list of books amounts to nerd shibboleths. It's not important to have read them so much as be able to use them as a marker of being a smart person.

(That isn't to say these aren't good books, I'm talking about their social function among a certain type of person, corporation or natural)