I don’t know about claiming to read books I never finished. Even for assigned reading, I have this weird thing where even if I HATE a book, I have to finish it so I can get to the end of the story. Mr. Dorky finds this hilarious as I sometimes get myself stuck in, say, a Nora Roberts or a Danielle Steele. The exception is Confederacy of Dunces. I can not finish it. Can’t!
When I was 8 or so, my mom told me she’d give me 5 bucks if read A Wrinkle In Time. I told her I had so I could get the cash before I finished reading whatever completely stupid book I was actually reading. She didn’t believe me, thankfully, so I actually did have to earn my 5 bucks.
Then a few years later she saw me reading The Hobbit and said she didn’t think I’d be able to finish it, and she was right… but I lied and told her I had, SO THERE.
I also lied and told my mom I had NOT read Still Life With Woodpecker when I was in middle school, because she thought it “too old” for me.
I’ve only VERY recently been able to get past this need. I would get stuck in some work that didn’t live up to its promise and just fell like I had… to keep… going… I agree with someone who said upthread that it’s liberating to finally just put the book down and walk away.
As for the OP, there is one person that I have learned to lie to about books read: my boss. I’m a big reader with a fairly eclectic taste, so I’ve always got something different to read at lunch. Frequently, when less bookish people notice this they will begin recommending things for me to read, and while I appreciate the thought, the recommendations are often terrible. My boss is very different from me both politically and philosophically, and she’s always trying to give me stuff like Permission to Succeed or random David Baldacci books that I’m just not interested in. I’ve learned the hard way that all she’s really interested in is telling me about the books (at considerable length), so now I just lie and say something like, “yeah, I think I read that last year” or “I’m pretty sure I’ve picked that up before.” She never really wants to talk about the books if I’ve read them, only explain them to me if I haven’t, so I’ve been pretty safe with this strategy. And if she mentions a book that genuinely seems interesting, then I’ll happily listen to the infodump and put it on my TBR list.
The only ones on the list I’ve been anywhere near is The Bible. I’ve read a good portion of it, maybe half. In pieces.
I’m not the kind to want to impress people for random reasons just to be impressive, so I don’t really have a lot of motivation to lie about reading something.
Perhaps the exception was in high school, where I gave up on The Return of the Native after about chapter 12 (they’re short chapters, but feel really long). It was the boringest book I’ve ever read, and I read Silas Marner and skimmed the begats in the Bible. I suppose technically I lied about reading it by never telling my teacher I didn’t and participating in class discussions and tests.
Goblin Queen said:
I wouldn’t characterize that as a lie. It was a mistake. To me, a "lie "is a deliberate misrepresentation. It can be a direct misrepresentation or a misrepresentation of omission, but it must be deliberate. Being wrong is just an error, not a lie.
iftheresaway said:
I had the same problem, even after I bailed on TROTN. I have managed to read through some real dreck because I hoped it would get better, or I felt I had to. But now I’m much more likely to bail - why waste time on something I don’t enjoy?
You can force yourself to slog through crap… but you can’t read Confederacy of Dunces?! Ah well, de gustibus non disputandum est, as the saying goes.
My mom caught me reading her copy of *The Handmaid’s Tale *probably around that same age and took it away. I think she said I could have it back when I was 12, but I IIRC I just got it from the library instead.
I did that too. It was called, “The Pale Drummer” by (I think - it was so many years ago) Richard Wrightly. If I remember my report correctly, it was a story about a young drummer boy during the civil war who went through the civil war growing more and more disenchanted with the war. He is finally killed in a battle a week after the surrender is signed between Grant and Lee. He then is seen at pointless battles with which America was involved continuing up to the present (well, the present at that time - Viet Nam). I think my feelings on the book were, if it had ended with his death after Appomattox, it would have been a very good book, but the reappearance throughout history thereafter was a little much. I also thought the discriptions of Civil War battles were very well done, although I thought they were a bit too similar to Red Badge of Courage. All in all, I don’t think I recommended it to anyone beyond high school.
I lied about reading this one in this very thread. I was confusing it with The Extended Phenotype; I think my copy has “By the author of The Selfish Gene” on the cover.
