What Books Have You Lied About Reading?

[ITR champion]

According to a poll, the ten books that people most frequently dishonestly claim to have read are:

1984
War and Peace
Ulysses
The Bible
Madame Bovary
A Brief History of Time
Midnight's Children
In Remembrance of Things Past
Dreams from My Father
The Selfish Gene

Now let's make our own confessions right here. Which books have you lied about reading?

I'll start off by admitting that I once lied to a college professor about reading William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!. Being a 18-year-old newly introduced to the idea of intellectualism at the time, I simply assumed that the purpose of life was to read as many big, fancy-sounding books as possible. If I couldn't read them, I could at least pretend that I'd read them and get brownie points that way.

[RealityChuck]

None. If I read a book, I say so. If I haven't, I'll say that, too. I don't really see any reason to lie about it.

For instance, 1984 was the only book on that list that I've actually read.

[Algher]

I had a professor who liked to claim that Democracy in America by de Tocqueville was the most quoted, least read book in academia (second only to Clausewitz's On War).

[bup]

Madame Bovary!? How does that come to pass, and so often?

I remember once lying about ever having read any Stephen King. I was defending him to my writing teacher, and lied rather than admit I had no idea what I was talking about. Now I've read Cujo.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Why would I lie about reading a book? If I claim to have read a book it's because I want to talk about it, which is a lot easier if I've read it.

What poll are you referring to, by the way? Can you link to it??

Of the books on your list, I've read all except for Midnight's Children, In Remembrance of Things Past, and Dreams from My Father, and the really boring sections of the Bibles (otherwise known as the "censuses" in Numbers and, I think Deuteronomy and Chronicles). War & Peace was mighty slow going, but it was a grade. I read the others for pleasure.

[Miller]

Originally Posted by ITR champion

I'll start off by admitting that I once lied to a college professor about reading William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!. Being a 18-year-old newly introduced to the idea of intellectualism at the time, I simply assumed that the purpose of life was to read as many big, fancy-sounding books as possible. If I couldn't read them, I could at least pretend that I'd read them and get brownie points that way.

I once lied about reading Ulysses for the same reasons, and around the same age.

[Bridget Burke]

I was assigned Great Expectations in high school & again in college but couldn't finish it. Not because of complexity; I just disliked it.

Not that I ever said "I read this book"--but I passed tests both times on the strength of classroom notes & Cliff's Notes.

[Idlewild]

I was supposed to read Rumah Kaca (House of Glass) by Pramoedya Ananta Toer for World Literature in 12th grade and I couldn't slog through it. Not even in English - maybe I should have tried it in the original, since I was also studying Bahasa Indonesia at the time. Liiied through my teeth.

I also only skimmed Crime and Punishment during that class, although I did read it later, and more or less enjoy it.

[Sternvogel]

Originally Posted by Skald the Rhymer

What poll are you referring to, by the way? Can you link to it??

Here you go. The poll seems to have been flawed, though -- people who took it were given a list of ten books (the article doesn't clearly state whether they were the same ten books each time) and asked to name the ones they had lied about reading.

[Musky Moon]

I lied about having read A Confederacy of Dunces to a girl I was trying to impress once. In order to avoid being found out, I bought it the next day. Never got through it all, and the girl didn't work out either. Would have a saved me 10 bucks and a couple of hours if I had simply told the truth.

[loshan]

I never could get through Moby Dick....2 pages and straight to sleep every time. But i told the teacher I read it and (barely) passed the test.

[Jettboy]

Years ago I once lied about reading Atlas Shrugged. At about 30-ish, I finally knuckled down and read it cover-to-cover, and now I wish I was lying about it.

[robardin]

I would never claim now to having read a book I haven't, though even to myself I might forget and think I "know enough" about a widely discussed book based on reading selected passages and/or second-hand summaries.

The only exception is that one time, in high school English class, when I faked my way through writing an in-class essay on Thoreau's "Walden" without having finished it because I just... could not... read it. I believe the last thing I read was his shopping list before deciding I'd take my chances on winging it. This from a person who read through all of Dickens' "Bleak House" (a 1000+ page tome) and managed to write a 15-page paper on it in one weekend.

[Khadaji]

I can't think of any. There are a few that I ended up skimming my way through that I will still say that I have read (Atlas Shrugged). I'm not sure that is the same as lying.

[Monstera deliciosa]

Originally Posted by Bridget Burke

I was assigned Great Expectations in high school & again in college but couldn't finish it. Not because of complexity; I just disliked it.

Not that I ever said "I read this book"--but I passed tests both times on the strength of classroom notes & Cliff's Notes.

Almost this. In one college course, I couldn't make myself read more than a third of Cooper's The Prairie or more than a few pages of James' Portrait of a Lady, but was able to B.S. my way through the final exam which included both. I thus let my prof assume that I had read them, so I guess that is lying by omission.

[Roland Orzabal]

Depends on the definition.

A. If writing a paper on it counts as claiming to have read it, too many to count. I did this all the time in high school and college as a contest with myself to see how obvious I could make it that I hadn't read the book, and still get an "A" just for writing original thoughts coherently.*

B. If A is true, but I get a pass if I actually read the book later, then about a dozen or so.

C. If B is true, but I get a pass if I started reading it and never got around to finishing, then maybe six, to the best of my recollection. (Corollary: If B is true, but I get a pass if I started reading it and consciously decided to stop because I thought it sucked, one. The sole outlier in this case is "Finnegan's Wake"; at the time I saw little reason to bother.)

D. If A is not true, and the only thing that counts is a direct statement or claim that I read the book, then off the top of my head, I'd have to say none. It's an interesting question; I'll think about it and follow up if I remember anything, but I can't imagine why I'd ever have done that.


*Answer: pretty damned obvious. My junior-level paper on Catch-22, about which I knew next to nothing beyond its being the origin of the phrase, was a logical exploration of the real-world implications of nonchalant acceptance of violent conflicts in an inherently nonsensical universe...basically a series of expanding and contracting convolutions ultimately adding up to "war is stupid". It got a 102 and a recommendation from the professor that I expand it into a thesis should the opportunity arise. Ah, English courses.

[KneadToKnow]

Originally Posted by ITR champion

Which books have you lied about reading?

In school, or in real life?

I doubt if I read 10% of the books I was supposed to read in school, and by "in school" I include not only high school but also undergrad.

In real life, I take a kind of perverse pride in being the most poorly-read librarian on the planet.

[Maastricht]

None. I lied once about a book I intended to write to impress a guy, but you didn't ask that. Otherwise, I'm so arrogant about my tastes in literature that I actually think it speaks in my favour that I couldn't read beyond page ten of Ulysses. I read two on the list and liked them. (Proust and Flaubert)It's interesting about the Bible though. I believe its unreadability is an integral part of fundamentalist religion; like the small print in a insurance policy, fundamentalists count on the fact that very, very few people actually have read the entire book, instead of cherrypicking and bluffing their way through.

[John DiFool]

My 11th grade lit class had to read Great Expectations. I got an A on the exam by taking good notes and parroting back everything the teacher said. As an educator now I realize I was being a bit dickish, but at the time I probably read 3 SF/fantasy novels per month and kind of resented that I was "forced" to read something I had no interest in.

[Biffy the Elephant Shrew]

Originally Posted by Roland Orzabal

A. If writing a paper on it counts as claiming to have read it, too many to count. I did this all the time in high school and college as a contest with myself to see how obvious I could make it that I hadn't read the book, and still get an "A" just for writing original thoughts coherently.*

B. If A is true, but I get a pass if I actually read the book later, then about a dozen or so.

C. If B is true, but I get a pass if I started reading it and never got around to finishing, then maybe six, to the best of my recollection. (Corollary: If B is true, but I get a pass if I started reading it and consciously decided to stop because I thought it sucked, one. The sole outlier in this case is "Finnegan's Wake"; at the time I saw little reason to bother.)

Do I understand your algorithm here correctly? Does this mean that you have actually written a paper on Finnegans Wake without having read any of it?

[Max Torque]

There were only two books assigned in high school that I didn't read. The first was The Scarlet Letter, which was so boring that I simply couldn't take it. Great literature or not, it's a 25-page short story edited down to a trim 180 pages. ugh.

The second was Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather. I honestly can't remember why I didn't read it, but I just lost interest about halfway through and never picked it up again.

On your list, I've read 1984 and Madame Bovary; loved the former, hated the latter, but I did read them all the way through. I've read large chunks of the Bible (Catholic high school) and A Brief History of Time, but I won't claim to have read them in full.

[Roland Orzabal]

Originally Posted by Biffy the Elephant Shrew

Do I understand your algorithm here correctly? Does this mean that you have actually written a paper on Finnegans Wake without having read any of it?

Yeah, but don't read too much into that. It was a freshman-level AP course, the teacher/professor was about as crazy as you'd have to be to assign AP high school students to read Finnegan's Wake, and my paper was about a half-step away from pure postmodern-deconstructionist psychobabble. A real Lit professor, as opposed to the wackaloon I had, would have failed it without a second glance.

That's hardly my only story about that teacher, but that's for another thread...

[Cisco]

I've read >75% of 1984, The Bible, A Brief History of Time, and The Selfish Gene, so I'd probably say I've read those if they came up. I guess that would depend on your definition of "lying." If it was relevant, I would admit I didn't finish.

The Bible and 1984 eventually got really boring.

A Brief History of Time got to a point where it was just words passing underneath my eyes, so I figured what's the point. I might try again sometime since I was a teenager at the time. I've had college physics and astronomy in the meantime so those might help.

The Selfish Gene is perpetually on hold at the library and I ran out of time when I borrowed it (I read >5 books at a time so it takes me forever in absolute time to finish one.) I do intend to finish it one day, as I liked it a lot.

[Goblin Queen]

Another one here for the "wrote a paper without reading the book" type of deception.

In high school we were assigned a paper on an American writer. Now, the actual assignment was really about the biographical information/historical context of the author and their work, so for the class I was writing about Herman Melville without having read Moby-Dick, and that was perfectly okay.

However, I don't think that the contest I submitted it to would have given me a $250 prize if they knew I was using all second-hand information for my references to the plot of the book.

I did read Moby-Dick later and actually liked it, so there's that redemptive aspect.

I've accidentally lied about having read a few short stories by well-known authors. I would assume that the story was in one of their anthologies that I had read and say yes when asked about a particular title, only to find out later that I was mistaken.

[Harmonious Discord]

Gone with the Wind. I absolutely hate it. I just pretended to read it for class for the history teacher. It was the one time I didn't care what grade I got.

[Icerigger]

Three, all for school book reports. Twelfth Night, I did the Cliff Notes. All the President's Men, I watched the movie. Moby Dick, classic comics.

[AppallingGael]

The only one of those I would consider lying about having read is 1984. Most of the others are too long and obviously boring to seriously expect it. The list struck me as an odd top ten but I suppose one is more likely today to be asked about having read Obama's book than most of the musty old classics.

[GuanoLad]

None. I can't see why lying about something like that would help anyone.

I also haven't lied about watching a TV series or stage show, listening to a radio play, or reading a magazine article.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Originally Posted by Maastricht

None. I lied once about a book I intended to write to impress a guy, but you didn't ask that. Otherwise, I'm so arrogant about my tastes in literature that I actually think it speaks in my favour that I couldn't read beyond page ten of Ulysses. I read two on the list and liked them. (Proust and Flaubert)It's interesting about the Bible though. I believe its unreadability is an integral part of fundamentalist religion; like the small print in a insurance policy, fundamentalists count on the fact that very, very few people actually have read the entire book, instead of cherrypicking and bluffing their way through.

I'm an atheist, but I think there are many parts of the Bible that are fine reading. In large part it depends on the translation.

[Jophiel]

My mom once gave me a copy of The Pillar of the Earth and bugged me for two years about reading it. Finally, I one day answered "Yeah, I did read it" and when she asked me what I thought, I dredged my memory of a couple SDMB threads panning it to say "Well, the historical parts were pretty interesting and stuff but the actual plot was kinda 'meh' and predictable but it was okay."

At least she stopped asking me about it. It's still sitting in my office, unread.

[RealityChuck]

The only thing that was close for me was the opposite. I wrote on a book that I knew the teacher or anyone grading couldn't possibly have read. It was for the NYS English Regents and just before taking it, I had finished a serialization of Emphyrio by Jack Vance. The book was not yet out, and it clearly wasn't the kind of book the Regents knew anything about even if it was. But if I was called on it, I could take my copies of Fantastic and show people I wasn't making things up.

[malkavia]

For sake of simplicity, I say I've read Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, when in reality I read about the first 1/4th of it before getting sidetracked and losing it to a packed box somewhere two moves ago. :/

[gaffa]

I'm going to have to go with the Bible, and I claimed to have done so to shut a religionist up during an argument. I've tried, but other than some exceptional passages, it's very dull and poorly written.

[Miss Woodhouse]

I have only ever lied about reading one book and that was more of a lie of omission. It was a highly fictionalized autobiography of a jazz player that I was assigned for a college lit class. I could not make myself get past chapter four. I really couldn't see the literary value in reading about some idiot bragging about how many women he's banged in his life (Starting at the tender age of 12; she was 14, of course.) I fudged my way through class discussions (which BTW only verified that I was correct in my original assessment of the book,) made myself familiar with characters and "plot," and counted myself lucky that the professor allowed us to choose which essay questions we would write on for our final. I skipped every question I could about it and managed to pull off a respectable A for the final and the class.

I did confess in the anonymous professor review at the end of the semester. I have no doubt he would have been able to guess which student skipped that particular assigned reading. I had had him as a professor in a previous class and we knew each other pretty well by then.

[Maiira]

Crime and Punishment. I pretended I'd finished it for a class.

I read about half of it before I put it down, and I know what happens at the end, but I'd like to pick it back up and finish it someday.

[amarinth]

My father lies about "Don Quixote" He saw the musical.
They are not the same.

I'm pretty honest about books I've never finished... I think. Or at least nothing comes to mind.

[guizot]

1. I once told two Mormon missionaries that I'd read the Book of Mormon, thinking it would make them leave me alone. But it had the opposite effect.

2. I said to someone that I'd read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe for the same reason (I'd only listened to it on the radio). It also had the same effect.

[Yllaria]

Oh, yeah. We can go on and on about the Hitchhiker's books, can't we?

Once in high school I turned in a book report for a non-existant book. Does that count?

[JoseArcadio]

Originally Posted by Yllaria

Once in high school I turned in a book report for a non-existant book. Does that count?

I did that too. Mine was called the Hitcher and would've been a classic!

Ulysses for a uni class. I’ve since struggled through it, however I would be lying if I claimed to understsnd much of it, even with lots of footnotes.

Oh, and once when I was about 10 I read a wee bit of a book about a young girl evacuated from London to the countryside during WWII. Despite not making it beyond chapter one I completed a book review that said little more than the blurb on the back and “this book was really boring.”

[astorian]

Of the books on the OP's list, I've read two in their entirety: "War and Peace" and "Ulysses."

I've also read a huge percentage of the Bible, but hardly all of it (I have absolutely no idea what's in the books of Micah or Obadiah, to name two).

There are no books I've lied about in order to impress people with my taste or intellect. Any lie I've told was to a teacher, to avoid getting in trouble for not reading an assignment.

[Airman Doors, USAF]

Originally Posted by Cisco

The Bible and 1984 eventually got really boring.

Wow, that's too bad. Both books are at their best at the end. The Book of Revelation, in particular, makes for oddly riveting reading, and Winston's conversations with O'Brien, culminating with his ordeal in Room 101, is the whole point of 1984.

I've never lied about reading a book, but I have sat through many discussions about books I've never read. I find it tedious when books are assigned, and I was rarely able to plow my way through them. I get the sense that teachers frequently assign books to read because they think they should assign so-called "classics", when in fact those books are typically brutally boring and anything but.

[Sigmagirl]

A Tale of Two Cities. I got an A+ on my paper based solely on what my father told me about it; it was his favorite book. I never even opened it.

It now is my favorite book.

[Serenata67]

I lied about Grapes of Wrath. It was my senior year of college, I had a lot of demanding classes... and my mom ended up having emergency surgery while my class was reading Grapes. I laid my priorities out... internship, portfolio, literature class I actually liked, philosophy classes I actually loved, and ... Literary Themes: Famine, Drought and Humanity. That one got the boot. Between Cliffs Notes and class discussions, I got through.

[Serenata67]

Originally Posted by Serenata67

I lied about Grapes of Wrath. It was my senior year of college, I had a lot of demanding classes... and my mom ended up having emergency surgery while my class was reading Grapes. I laid my priorities out... internship, portfolio, literature class I actually liked, philosophy classes I actually loved, and ... Literary Themes: Famine, Drought and Humanity. That one got the boot. Between Cliffs Notes and class discussions, I got through.

But don't let them know that in the John Steinbeck Admiration thread...

[wierdaaron]

War and Peace is probably easy to lie about, because even if you had read it you'd be unlikely to want to talk about it. What was my favorite part? Oh, I'd say the peace.

[astorian]

Originally Posted by wierdaaron

War and Peace is probably easy to lie about, because even if you had read it you'd be unlikely to want to talk about it. What was my favorite part? Oh, I'd say the peace.

I thought "War and Peace" was a gripping page-turner. In fact, the ONLY part that bored me was Tolstoy's second postscript, which belabors every point he'd made much more effectively and subtly over the course of the novel.

[Enderw24]

Originally Posted by ITR champion

According to a poll, the ten books that people most frequently dishonestly claim to have read are:

1984
War and Peace
Ulysses
The Bible
Madame Bovary
A Brief History of Time
Midnight's Children
In Remembrance of Things Past
Dreams from My Father
The Selfish Gene

No need to lie. I've read all these books.


OK, yeah. Totally lying about that.

[Biffy the Elephant Shrew]

Originally Posted by Enderw24

No need to lie. I've read all these books.


OK, yeah. Totally lying about that.

I honestly can't remember if I read 1984 all the way through or if I skipped or skimmed parts. The only books on that list I know I've read cover to cover are Ulysses (repeatedly) and The Selfish Gene.

[MeanOldLady]

Originally Posted by Skald the Rhymer

Why would I lie about reading a book? If I claim to have read a book it's because I want to talk about it, which is a lot easier if I've read it.

That was my thought. I'm not going to lie about having read a book, and then stand there with a dumb look on my face, stammering "Uh, ohm.. yeah," when you start talking about it. I've never lied about reading a book, unless you consider writing a paper on a book I've never read lying. Sure, I wrote the paper, but I never claimed I read the book.

[salinqmind]

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad. Foisted by a clueless sadistic new teacher who actually thought a bunch of working-class goombahs would have a clue...no one, including me, read the thing. Not because we just didn't wanna, but we couldn't! We had no clue as to who, what, when, where, or why. Out of all the books out there....well, the whole class got an 'F'.

I redeemed mysself by writing a 10 page report on Life In The Middle Ages, complete with illustrations.