What Books Do You Pretend to Have Read?

Rebecca Joines Schinsky

Chief of Staff

Rebecca Joines Schinsky is the executive director of product and ecommerce at Riot New Media Group. She co-hosts All the Books! and the Book Riot Podcast. Follow her on Twitter: @rebeccaschinsky.

You know how it goes. You’re standing around at a party, and the conversation turns to books (as it does at all good parties), when someone mentions a book you haven’t read. Maybe it’s a super-popular book that you know all about even though you’ve never read it. Maybe it’s a classic. Maybe it’s a book you’ve been meaning to read forever but just never seem to get around to.

When the inevitable, “So, have you read it?” moment comes around, you’re faced with a choice: admit that you haven’t, or fake it til you make it. Pretending to have read books can take a couple forms: you can nod silently and let the discussion go on, or you can contribute to the conversation, really building the illusion that you’ve read this book you haven’t read. This is especially easy for classics you’ve been hearing about your whole life, and Big Books of the Moment that are getting lots of coverage.

Pretending to have read books is, we think, a reality of the reading life. So we want to know today: what books do you pretend to have read? This survey’s anonymous, and confession is good for the soul, so spill it, readers!