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Guilty Secrets

S

Speranza

New Member
I enjoyed reading this article in The Guardian last week "Our guilty secrets: the books we only say we've read"

It says that 65% of readers admit lying about reading classic novels.

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four comes top in a poll of the UK's guilty reading secrets. Asked if they had ever claimed to read a book when they had not, 65% of respondents said yes and 42% said they had falsely claimed to have read Orwell's classic in order to impress. This is followed by Tolstoy's War and Peace (31%), James Joyce's Ulysses (25%) and the Bible (24%).
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I don't remember ever lying about reading a book , and regarding James Joyce's Ulysses , I've never read it and I don't actually believe a lot of people who say they have ! :D

So, what are your guilty secrets ?


P.S. I tried to add the URL to the article but it seems I haven't reached my 15 posts quota yet .
 
Here's the link:

Our guilty secrets: the books we only say we've read | Books | The Guardian

And a comment from Charlie Brooker that says what I was going to:
Top of the list: George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Presumably people don't feel the need to actually read it because they can see the film adaptation taking place all around them every day, yeah? Yeah. In your FACE, Jack Straw.

If you assume the respondents are at least vaguely representative of the nation as a whole, almost half of us have pretended to read Nineteen Eighty-Four, which means when you're lying about it to impress someone, there's a very good chance they haven't read it either. Both of you are hiding your true selves in order to avoid recrimination, which, ironically enough, is precisely what the citizens in Nineteen Eighty-Four wind up doing, not that you'd know.
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1984 is a school bad memory for me.
I find those question about lying on the classics a bit pernissious.(not in this thread specialy Speranza,it is an interesting debat)
It imply that classic are terribly boring,most poeple lye about reading them so you should not bother with them yourself.Don't feel guilty about it.
I had this attitude of fear in front of classic but as soon as i started,i was most agreably surprised.Tolstoy because of the lenght of his books is an easy target,but i loved War and peace.On the other hand Joyce was always a killjoy to me(it was some of my first reading in English and nearly gave up the attempt altogether)
Classic are books among others,some you like,some you don't.If you lye about classic you must be lying about the rest of your reading.
You can pass for a priest wearing a cassock but only simpeltons would think you an intellectual because you lye about reading 1984.

hmmmm
 
One of my biggest guilty secrets authors is nora roberts... I would never actually be able to tell anyone in real life that i read her... my mom got me hooked :eek:
 
DogEar said:
One of my biggest guilty secrets authors is nora roberts... I would never actually be able to tell anyone in real life that i read her... my mom got me hooked :eek:
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I"m with you--I'm much more likely to lie by ommission and not admit reading a book that I'm embarrassed to have read then to pretend to have read a book that I haven't.
 
As a teen my parents bought me a few paperback classics, all reprints from the same publisher. I remember all of them were poorly bound. Off the top of my head I remember reading White Fang and Silas Marner, there were a few others too. A couple of years ago while standing in line at B&N I picked up a hardcover Count of Monte Cristo from the B&N Classics display. I've made two attempts to read it and I never got very far. I have to admit it was slightly boring, and I also found myself snickering like Beavis/Butthead everytime I came across "Danglers". I'll make another attempt at reading it sometime soon.

I have never lied about reading a book that I haven't read, and I was a little surprised to see that so many people do. I don't know much about Orwell's 1984 except that many conspiracy theorists refer to it as evidence that the government is taking over and plotting to imprison/enslave us all.
 
I don't lie about books I've read or haven't read. People know that I'm strange in my reading tastes, so why say I've read some classic, when I really haven't? I'm 25 and just now finished Sense and Sensibility, and even that took me a good four weeks to finish. *lol*
 
I wish I had missed them, I trawled through the Fellowship out of obligation - now I say I haven't read it so I don't have to have a very boring conversation with some people!
 
I must say I agree with both of you - LOTR to me was just a bunch of names and weird orc things fighting a lot...very uninspiring for me. Each to their own though I suppose. Actually no, everyone should have my opinion - that's a lot better!
 
incredulo said:
I must say I agree with both of you - LOTR to me was just a bunch of names and weird orc things fighting a lot...very uninspiring for me. Each to their own though I suppose. Actually no, everyone should have my opinion - that's a lot better!
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*lol* Thanks for the laugh. It looks like you have 2 recruits to share your opinion. I did enjoy The Hobbit...I do have to make that confession. But the others were too drenched in detail for me to sort out. ;)
 
Guilty secret - I don't like Jane Austen or Neil Gaimen very much. :/ I've tried, but I just can't get into them.
 
I have tried to read 1984, but just couldn't. I then tried to readBrave New World but coudn't do that, either. It's something about those government controled futuristic societies, I think.
 
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