interlude: Trying to impress people

is the number one reason given as to why people lie about books they've read according to a report released recently in the UK.

My own number one reason is typically to get the other person to shut up about it. Of course I do this to say I haven't read books which I plainly have. This is really helpful if you find yourself in a discussion with someone who has a strong opinion which greatly differs from your own.

Anyway, from the article linked:

The study, carried out on the World Book Day website in January and February, surveyed 1,342 members of the public.

Those who lied have claimed to have read:

1. 1984 - George Orwell (42 percent) - This certainly explains all of the rather embarrassing attempts to link George W. Bush to this book I had seen on internet forums for the past 8 years.

2. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (31) - I tried to read this, but it didn't grab me. I think I made it a few dozen pages in before giving up. This was an attempt to read more Russian literature in an attempt to familiarize myself with cannon. If the internet had existed, I'm certain I'd have found wikipedia's entries to be more enlightening.

3. Ulysses - James Joyce (25) - Never read it. Tried to but found it far more self indulgent than my patience allowed.

4. The Bible (24) - Have read it. Was Catholic struggling with a bit of a faith crisis. Instead I realized that I like rite and mysticism, but find the hierarchy to be a bit bland and not really in line with my own morals. I'd have been a GREAT Episcopalian, but my attempts to join that church were not really met with any degree of success.

5. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (16) - Read a great summary of it once.

6. A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking (15) - Read it. Didn't understand enough of it to have made it worth my while. Probably didn't help that I was in middle school.

7. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie (14) - Magical Realism? Pass.

8. In Remembrance of Things Past - Marcel Proust (9) - Zero interest in slogging through a great brilliant epic that few others have gone through just to get some kind of literary achievement badge. I can read many smaller classics in that time frame.

9. Dreams from My Father - Barack Obama (6) - Never read. Not really driven to do so either.

10. The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins (6)- Never read. Find Dawkins to be a bit of a prat. Certainly better than Hitchens, but still, no interest.