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Sigh. I lied about reading Peter Pan.
Not because I wanted to feel like I had more in common with anyone specifically that I was talking to, but rather because one day, somebody asked me if I had after I had told them how much I loved the story.
I'd read up about it a lot, and watched various different movie versions of it... but never read the actual book. I still don't really understand why, I normally choose the books over the movies.
I felt like I had committed blasphemy though, and eventually bought the book.
Now I have 3 copies... it's so much deeper and way more wonderful than I thought it was!
I used to have 4 copies...but gave one to someone I thought could do with a little bit of Neverland magic. I also have a Neverland tattoo on me now, to remind me never to forget Neverland, but that's whole a different story.
It's such a silly thing to do really and I do feel very silly about it still. Especially after it became far more precious to me now than it was before.
Leila
Have you read My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult?
Since my ovarian cancer fight and subsequent survival, this is the one question I can depend on being asked.
My head begs me to answer NO but my heart/soul normally goes with YES, just to make people happy.
Everybody wants or needs me to read this book, but hey, I cannot. Like many things that stems from my fight with cancer – I have locked it all up in a huge yellow box in the furthest corner of my mind.
No, I don’t need to be reminded in any way, shape or form of the fight, the feelings of loss or the grief. The guilt that comes from all the help and sacrifice my family had to go through to save my life.
So NO, I will never read the book, but YES I have read it - my little white lie.
My question is, am I missing out, will it really be as traumatic as I think it will be OR will it give me cathartic release?
Martha
Soooooo, I've lied about reading The God Delusion.
I mean, I tried to read it, and I really do want to finish it because in the bit I've managed to read the author has some pretty interesting points, but he is SO VERBOSE!
It's very difficult to just READ. In a few conversations, I've brought up a few of the points I have gleaned from the book, and given the impression I've read the whole book, but I haven't.
I don't think I've read more than a fifth... I keep trying to finish it so as to negate my lies, and also because I'd like to know all the author's thoughts - they're really interesting. But, it's written like a medical journal, and I feel like I'm drowning in pretentious English that's sole purpose is to give the work greater esteem, but instead makes it unintelligible to me!
It's a weird position to be in, too! I love reading! In school, I always finished the set works before class even started.
Jennifer
The self-help delusion
During a very animated discussion about self-help books, where everyone present had read Brandon Bays, one very verbal (and intelligent) acquaintance commented:
"He (meaning Brandon Bays) could at least have explained it better blah blah blah..."
We were all frozen to speechlessness for a few minutes, when some kind person broke the ice quite deftly, starting off on another tack.
Quite obviously she hadn't read the book or any other by Brandon Bays as all the books show a picture of a female!
It's true what they say about empty vessels making the most noise, I guess.
Quite frankly, I would never enter into a discussion claiming to have knowledge on a subject and then fall flat on my face. On the other hand, she probably did not even know that she fell flat on her face.
Anyhow, it just leaves one with a feeling of distrust which is so unnecessary, isn't it?
Karima
Spot the liar
I was a Matric examiner for English Home Language in the 90s and part of my job was to moderate orals. I went to schools and listened to a selection of students doing their orals and assessed whether the marks the school had given them were appropriate.
One year the topic of the prepared speech was the student's favourite book. I listened to one student talk enthusiastically about reading Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh.
I was born in Scotland and it took me a while to get into the phonetically written Scots dialect in which the book is written. I was intrigued to know how this South African teenager had coped so I asked him how he managed to understand the language.
He looked at me quizzically and replied: "I could understand Ewan McGregor, I mean Rent Boy, quite easily."
Then I knew he had watched the recently-released film, not read the book. Whether he thought an English examiner would not have read something as edgy as Trainspotting or whether he had never even seen the book and how it was written I'm not sure, but that was one big book lie!
Tracy
Any and all Jane Austen reads
I keep telling all my snobbish bookish friends that I regularly read Pride and Prejudice & Sense and Sensibility, but in reality, I only know what happened in the books thanks to the various movies.
I haven't made it past the first 22 pages of Sense and Sensibility without waking up 3 hours later and having completely lost the plot.
And I think I only made it as far as the second chapter of Pride and Prejudice before sighing and giving up in frustration.
It's just not my thing people! I'd much rather hide in a corner with a funny chick lit or a great YA than read Jane Austen.
Monique
I have lied about reading the Gormenghast trilogy.
It is one of the fantasy trilogies, but I have never even been able to get past the first 50 pages in the first book.
It was years ago when I was a teenager, still worried about what my peers thought of me. I was always the reader, so not reading such as important series, was not something I could admit to!
Rusha
Tolstoy’s War & Peace
It’s one of those books that I thought I should have read. An epic classic that would sweep me away.
I tried, I really tried but I just couldn’t get into it. The book is still sitting on my bookshelf, 20 years later. It’s so old that it looks like it’s been read but it’s still on my “to-read” list. (I looked up the Idiot’s Guide to War & Peace instead)
Justine
More War and Peace fibs
I lied about reading "War and Peace"
A friend was lying on the beach reading it and telling us how wonderful it was and anyone who hadn't read it was illiterate! I responded by saying "Read it too but preferred Jackie Collins's novels".
That took the wind out of his sails and we heard no more. It was worth the lie.
What arrogant git would read THAT book on the beach?
Barbara
Have you ever lied about reading a book? If so, which book was it?
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