I own about 1,000 books, which I’ve stuffed onto four tall bookshelves in my home office. Like most writers, I have a weakness for buying them. I don’t steal them, as A.J. admitted he has done in a recent blog post, but sometimes when I go to the Strand or Barnes & Noble, I’ll be overcome with a compulsion to own something. A spine will beckon to me—say, Leon Edel’s biography of Henry James—and I’ll slide the book off the shelf, feel the slight tackiness of the dust jacket under my fingers and, if no one’s looking, thrust my nose into the pages and smell the ink and binding glue. Then, with a rush of excitement, I’ll walk quickly to the cashier and place my money on the counter. Sometimes a look of recognition will pass between the cashier and me, as if the young woman with close-cropped hair and nose ring behind the desk is thinking, “Oh yeah, that Henry James was a freak show, and you’re going to love this.” Finally I’ll get home and place it on my shelf…and never read it. But when a guest comes over and sees Edel’s tome in my office and says, “Oh, Edel! Don’t you love the way he described James writing The Turn of the Screw?” I might answer, “Oh, yeah. Fantastic job. What a writer!” A total lie.
This morning on NPR’s “The Takeaway,” Patrik Henry Bass, senior editor at Essence, talked about how people lie about reading certain books. You might happily admit you’ve never read The Celestine Prophecy, but what about To The Lighthouse, A Remembrance of Things Past or Being and Nothingness? (I haven’t read any of these, but I own them.) Have you ever lied about reading a book? Why, and which ones?
March 9, 2009 at 11:08 am
I’ve only ever lied about reading a book in class, and even then I’m fairly certain the only one I lied about reading was “Bleak House.” Uggh, don’t get me started on Dickens.
I’m actually pretty anal about having read all the books I own. If I started it and couldn’t finish it, why on earth hold on to it? Get it out there so someone else whose taste it matches can read it, imho. Currently, I’m working feverishly to read through the books I received for the holidays. I’m almost caught up :-)
March 11, 2009 at 1:10 pm
I used to only allow books onto shelves after I had read them, but soon the stacks of books waiting to be read became too large and I ended up shelving books that hadn’t been read. I have a copy of Pilgram’s Progress that someone once asked me if I had read. I lied and said I did and added: “the weight of the world is heavy, man.” Banal commentary, I know. Since then I’ve decided to be more honest about what I’ve read and find it relieving when I talk to other writers and they too haven’t read books that they might own.