Books You Claim to Have Read, But Haven’t Read

Posted by David Duhr in Writing Help      3 comments

Sep
21

You’re at a party and someone makes (what you assume to be) a pithy reference to The Divine Comedy, so you chuckle and/or nod your head knowingly. But! The hell if you’ve ever read Dante.

Or Joyce’s Dubliners, one of my “Of course I’ve read that book” books I’ve never read. We all have one. Or two. Or three dozen.

Recently we opened up the topic on Facebook, and the results were varied and amusing:

Michelle: “The Kama Sutra… jk jk… I read it… well, looked at the drawings…”

Roanna: “Ulysses. Just. Can’t. Can’t with Joyce in general.”

Heather: “Just about any classical lit. People talk about The Scarlet Letter, and I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, I remember that.’ Not. I’ve learned over the years that I’m a contemporary lover. In everything. I mean, that’s probably not entirely accurate. There was some Must-Read Classics Top 100 list circulating around, and I had read 50-60. I just don’t usually enjoy them. Except Wuthering Heights. I lurve it.”

Jeffrey: “Hunger Games, Fifty Shades, Twilight, Volkswagen Passat Service Manual: 1998-2004, Fear Strikes Out: The Jim Piersall Story.”

Michelle: “I read some Hemingway I didn’t like… that’s kind of like a lit confession. It was Death in the Afternoon… all about bullfighting… too much testosterone for my 17 year old mind to deal with.”

Tess: “I personally have only made it halfway through Atlas Shrugged. GEEEEEZ it is just so dang LONG!”

How about you guys? Care to share with us an avid reader’s deepest, darkest secret? Use a pseudonym if you must.