The Top Ten Books People Lie About Reading

The Federalist ^ | 01/16/2014 | Ben Domenech

[jocon307]

Have you ever lied about reading a book? Maybe you didn’t want to seem stupid in front of someone you respected. Maybe you rationalized it by reasoning that you had a familiarity with the book, or knew who the author was, or what the story was about, or had glanced at its Wikipedia page. Or maybe you had tried to read the book, even bought it and set it by your bed for months unopened, hoping that it would impart what was in it merely via proximity (if that worked, please email me).

[Hugin]

1) The Long Ships, by Frans G. Bengtsson. It is all about the life and times of Vikings in the 10th Century, and has been a best seller in northern Europe since it was written in the 1940s. Translated into 23 languages.

I'll have to read it. I do remember a corny but fun movie by that name from the 60s.

I would add to your list anything by Bernard Cornwell. Real page turners and you can learn tons about history. I love the historical notes at the end, because he separates out the fiction from the history, and lets you know what he has changed (not much). I really knew very little about Wellington's campaign in Spain and Portugal until I read his Sharpe's series. He gives an accurate description of every battle fought there.

[AnAmericanMother]

One that I still can't decide if it's worth learning the language for is Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. He wrote a lot of children's books, but this one is a post-apocalyptic dystopia.

Sort of a funhouse-mirror reflection of "A Canticle for Leibovitz".

The entire BOOK is written in the sort of English that might have developed (or devolved) a couple hundred years after a devastating nuclear war.

Good book, but it was a lot of work.

[AnAmericanMother]

I think Wallace controlled it better. He was also a child of his time AND treating a delicate religious topic (the preachers could kill your book in those days!) I still don't know what Rand's excuse was.

< looking carefully around and donning safety helmet >

[left that other site]

LOL...when I gave that answer to Mom, she realized i was “old enough” to watch Dr. Zhivago.

It has been one of my favorite movies for YEARS. (like...a half CENTURY! hahaha)

[Sir_Ed]

I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Love Story, Siddhartha and Zen & The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. And On The Road...great books.

[AnAmericanMother]

Cornwell is MUCH better researched than C. S. Forester (I also think he's a better writer, although he also inserts 20th c. mores and thinking into early 19th c. England, which in my view is wrong. Which is why I prefer Marryat).

My undergrad degree was in history with a concentration in military history - English Civil War, Napoleonic Wars, and American Civil War, mostly. He is right on the money, historically speaking.

[reed13k]

Atlas as with Moby are hard to get started. Democracy in America I have on my desk and has proven my foil to this point but ultimately I’ll perservere much as I just did with the Simarillion last week... again a hard start. War and Peace for me was the same but then 800 pages flew by and the last 200 seemed as long as the first 100.

[AnAmericanMother]

Back when I was a hippie, I read the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and The Pump House Gang. They were o.k. Wolfe has a biting wit.

[yarddog]

I sure agree about Dr. Zhivago. One of the best movies ever. Also really beautiful music.

[jocon307]

“Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban”

I read that and loved it. “The heart of the wood’s in the heart of the stone”? Something like that.

Another of the few books I’ll probably read again.

[Sir_Ed]

“a few writings of Madame Blovetsky...”

Did you mean Madame Blavatsky?

I read some by her, and Annie Bessant, and others from the TS, as I was raised in that evil stuff.

Ed

[left that other site]

The first time I read “Atlas Shrugged”, I skimmed over the 100 page radio speech.

I have since read it all, but that part was very repetitious, and interrupted both the action and character development.

In an interview that Ayn Rand did on TV (I think with Dick Cavett), she very frankly stated that the entire book was just a vehicle for expressing her Philosophy of Objectivism.

[wolfman]

I speed read Moby Dick once. It’s something about a whale.

[RinaseaofDs]

The last 65 pages - Reardon’s speech.

Wow. Cure for sleeplessness.

[left that other site]

Hoo-boy!

We should start an ex-hippies anonymous ! LOL!

[jocon307]

“It has been one of my favorite movies for YEARS.”

Yeah, it’s a great movie! David Lean really knew how to make a big screen extravaganza. I guess I need to watch “Lawrence of Arabia” I saw so much praise about it when Peter O’Toole died.

[AnAmericanMother]

Georgette Heyer's Napoleonic War novels are a little bit of a hop out of the romance genre for her. "The Spanish Bride" is set in the Peninsular War, "An Infamous Army" at and around Waterloo.

And of course there's "The Fortunes of Harriette", written by Angela Thirkell (niece of Kipling and writer of the modern Barsetshire novels, bringing Trollope up to the 30s and 40s) under a pen name. Harriette Wilson was the courtesan who tried to blackmail Wellington by threatening to publish some imprudent letters he had written to her, eliciting his famous response, "Publish and be damned!"

[Sherman Logan]

I’ve read five of ‘em. Really. Only skimmed The Prince.

Unclear why Tale of Two Cities would be on the list. It’s short and an easy read. Much more so than a lot of Dickens.

[jocon307]

“I’ve read parts of most of them and all of none of them.”

You are like a reading nosher!

[left that other site]

I especially love the theme “magnificent music for “Lawrence of Arabia.”