How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard
Non-fiction: Reading. Unabridged audiobook from Blackstone Audio. Published in 2007. Read by Grover Gardner. 4 hours and 28 min. Purchased from audible.com
I did not look very carefully at the summary of this book and was pretty disappointed by what it offered compared to what I was hoping to find. Looking at reviews after I had listened to it, I discovered that many people are calling the book a satire. I certainly had a lot of “is he serious?” thoughts as I was listening to it, but for some reason I did not think “oh, this is satire!”. I feel a bit dense.
Audible’s summary:
The truly cultivated person is not the one who has read a book but the one who understands the book’s place in our culture. Using examples from authors and movies, Bayard examines the many kinds of “non-reading” and urges us to consider what reading means and how we absorb books as a part of ourselves.
For audio click the photo, for a hard copy: How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read
I checked YouTube to see if there were any interviews or discussions about this book. Here’s all I could find:
Wow, that was an insightful interview. Glad I speak fluent … what language is that, anyway?
LOL. I’ve no idea. The sad thing is that it looks like it might be pretty interesting. Too bad there are no subtitles.