Hey all!
Welcome to Thursday evening's GUS Diary. Tonight I want to talk about boasting about books and telling the truth about books, but before we get down to the main part of the diary, I want to boast that it has now been 73 days since I last smoked a cigarette.
According to my QuitKeeper tally, I have not-smoked over 2000 cigarettes. That's 100 packs. I picture them on my large dining room table. Thinking about them I am taken aback at how big the stack of packs is. I think of it as a burden that used to be on my back, a burden I've thrown off.
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There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it - Bertrand Russell
I haven't read nearly as many books as I would have liked to have read by this time in my life. There are, and always have been, small piles of books all over my house, books I haven't read yet. Some of them are just books I haven't gotten around to reading yet, but some are the legendarily challenging books:
Ulysses,
The Waves by Virginia Woolf, and the above-quoted Bertrand Russell's
History of Western Philosophy.
People brag about a book they've read because why? Is it because the books are difficult to read? To lord it over people who haven't read them or don't read much at all? Because they set a goal for themselves and want everyone to know they've accomplished it?
I am not totally averse to bragging about what I've read. I recall telling almost everyone when I finally read Moby Dick after about 20 attempts. This summer, I read the first four novels of Jane Austen, in order, in three weeks. I think I bragged about that because 19th century literature is not exactly my thing and I considered it an achievement that I kept at it all the way through Mansfield Park and beyond to finish Emma. I did the first four because I found really good paperback copies for $1 each at a local used book store. If they'd had the last two, I'd have bought and read them too.
People don't just boast about the books they've read, they lie about them too! The most lied-about book is 1984 by George Orwell.
That kind of surprised me. First, it isn't a difficult book, so reading it is not the sort of achievement that does one honor. Second, although it is a very famous book and its title and language have become part of our political discourse, the book is not that good. It's a bit heavy on message and it does not have the skillful writing or the memorable characters that, in my snobbish opinion, make great literature great.
Anyway, according to the survey published in The Guardian, the top 10 books people claim to read but haven't
1 1984 by George Orwell (26%)
2 War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (19%)
3 Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (18%)
4 The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (15%)
5 A Passage to India by EM Forster (12%)
6 Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien (11%)
7 To Kill A Mocking Bird by Harper Lee (10%)
8 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (8%)
9 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (8%)
10 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (5%)
Truth? I've read them all except for Jane Eyre. And I haven't seen any of the many, many film adaptations. If any of you have read it or seen the films, tell me what I'm missing.
I was surprised that Moby Dick didn't make the list.
So, in the comments, in addition to the usual amiable conversations, tell us, please,
have you read any books that you boast about?
Which one and why do you consider it boast-worthy?
We few, we happy few, we band of quitters!
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Schedule
Thu PM: James Earl - currently reading The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Fri AM: flumptytail
Fri PM: open
Sat AM: effervescent checking in when she can
Sat PM: open
Sun AM: gchaucer2
Sun PM: open
Mon AM: open
Mon PM: paulitics
Tue AM: gchaucer2
Tue PM: open
Wed AM: open
Wed PM: Vacationland
Thu AM: nokkonwud