Lied about the books they read

Most Britons have lied about the books they read

LONDON (Reuters) –
Thu Mar 5, 3:29 pm ET


Two out of three Britons have lied about reading books they have not,
and George Orwell's "1984" tops the literary fib list, according to a survey published on Thursday.

the study also shows that the author people really enjoy reading is J.K. Rowling,
creator of the bestselling Harry Potter wizard series.

According to the survey, 65 percent of people have pretended to have read books, and of those,
42 percent singled out "1984."
Next on the list came "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy
and in third place was James Joyce's "Ulysses."

The Bible was in fourth position,
and newly elected U.S. President Barack Obama's autobiography "Dreams from My Father" came ninth.



Asked why they had lied about reading a book, the main reason was to impress the person they were speaking to.



Those who lied have claimed to have read:

1. 1984 - George Orwell (42 percent)

2. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (31)

3. Ulysses - James Joyce (25)

4. The Bible (24)

5. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (16)

6. A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking (15)

7. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie (14)

8. In Remembrance of Things Past - Marcel Proust (9)

9. Dreams from My Father - Barack Obama (6)

10. The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins (6)



Link to full story

1984 should be on the required reading list to graduate from primary school.

java wrote:

1984 should be on the required reading list to graduate from primary school.

that was a great album

I have War & Peace and a few Hawkings books .... I have not read them all the way through yet....

but they sit on my bookshelf and look like I did, cause I bought them used at a thrift store

who would pretend to read rememberance of things past?

one hundred years of solitude or gravity's rainbow should be on there..... oh and Nostromo by Joe Conrad.

jamesjchrist wrote:

who would pretend to read rememberance of things past?

aren't all writings rememberance of things past? Even if they are set in some unknown future time?

[quote="Alberta Boy"][quote="jamesjchrist"]who would pretend to read rememberance of things past?

Quote :

aren't all writings rememberance of things past? Even if they are set in some unknown future time?

that was Proust's point... it just took him 7 volumes to say it