Browsing Books: 35 + Books Everyone Lies About Having Read

People lie about reading books!!??

Ha ha, yes, books seem to be nearly a number one topic to lie about, and what’s even funnier is that so many totally dig in even when their discussions begins to reveal signs of major fibbery, such as buzz words or phrases that come off as parroted without the ability to elaborate, or being unable to talk even a little bit about what they liked or didn’t about a particular story.

Books also seem to be one of the best topics for quickly making one’s way into a rabbit hole, and this interweb excursion was no exception. I came across a page called “35 + Books Everyone Lies about Having Read.”

It turns out there are waaaay more than thirty-five here, so apparently lying about numbers is a thing as well. OK, so it says “+” but when the list just keeps going with no apparent end, the “35” becomes a little misleading. No worries, it was fun looking through them anyway, and I decided to share some because I wanted to chatter about them a little. Of course, when you see the list, you’ll understand why I had a limitation, which I decided to be fifteen. I also realized that if I chose titles I really loved, I’d end up with a list of books that would be little more than reading recommendations, with no added color, funny memories, poignant call backs or any of those associations that come with remembering the background behind books in your past.

I may do this again, but for now we’ll see where it takes us. I wonder what books on this list you all have read, and what memories they kick up?

And without further ado, the fifteen, with the titles I’ve read in green font~

To Kill a Mockingbird* (Harper Lee) ^{† –}I’ve heard people say it’s overrated. That may or may not be true, I only know that I read it in elementary school, and remember very little. I believe I was in sixth grade (I remember the classroom), and at that point in our lives I don’t think was too young to be teaching us about the book’s subject matter, so I’m wondering if the style didn’t really suit me. Or maybe I was just a lazy reader. In fourth grade we were required to summarize book reports on those giant index cards, and I recall at least one book I liked (The Cricket in Times Square), though toward the enterprise as a whole I must have been mostly indifferent, because I don’t recall any great love of picking up a book. In fifth grade The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe pretty much rocked my world, though I still have no recall for rushing home to be able to read (although Nancy Drew might have been at about that time). To be honest, I never really loved school itself until about seventh grade (or was it eighth?) English class, so while the message was important, I might have just been unready for the vehicle in which it was delivered.

Diary of a Young Girl* (Anne Frank) ^{† –}Eighth grade English class covered this book and its context in great measure. Our teacher was Jewish and when I look back at this time I marvel at how she was able to present all this as objectively as she did. It definitely played a role in my later choice (in high school) to choose World War II as my specific historical era of concentration (everyone had to choose one), and after graduation I continued to read oodles of books about it, complete with topics that shot off in many directions, including those such as Hans and Sophie Scholl, nucleus of an anti-Hitler group called the White Rose, who remain an inspiration to me today.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer* (Mark Twain) ^†Oh my gosh I love this book! I can still remember our seventh-grade English teacher beginning her discussion about this story, which I was sure I would hate, probably because I perceived it as a book for boys. She read most, or perhaps even all, of it aloud to us, doing the voices really well and inserting perfectly co-ordinated commentary at key moments. I didn’t love in Huckleberry Finn, quite so much, which really bummed me out because the love I had for Tom Sawyer was so unusual for me—as I said, I hadn’t been a great lover of books at that point.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (J.K. Rowling) ^†Read it! Who hasn’t? Well, I know a lot of people aren’t into Harry, which I just don’t get. Who knows, maybe they say the same about my ideas re: vampires, but whatever the case, I have read and re-read this series multiple times, including just recently. I can still remember my sweet little Turtle dumpling at three years old, the day after we had gone out at midnight to collect the newest—I think it was the last book, and he was still excited about “livin’ life large,” being out so late the night before. He was sitting up on my bed, his adorable little legs stretched out in front of him and pleading with me, “Please, Mummy, please, can we speed up our reading lessons, I want to read this book by myself soooooo baaaaaad!” Heh heh, yeah, he called me “Mummy” back then. Not really sure why, but it was kinda cute.

Lord of the Flies (William Golding) – Heard of it, sounds boring, read the blurb, completely uninterested, change my mind.

Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck) – This is the book set in the dustbowl era, is it not? Jeez, I’ll feel really stupid if I’m wrong about that! I have no clue what it’s about but I do recall wanting to read it not too many years ago. Push me, somebody!

The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) – Ohhhh, I own it but haven’t yet read it. Someone recommended it to me and in a recent re-read of Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran she discusses going over it with her students. It doe sound a bit mid-century-ish, a time from when not many authors really grab my attention and it even seems rather dry. But I’m game for this particular one because the discussion amongst Nafisi’s students—whose fight for the freedom to discuss literature as mature adults made me weep, for their own situation and the idiotic descent my own country is engaging—brought to the fore angles that are at play today. I’ve never met Nafisi’s students, but I love them, and feel I owe it to them to read a book they fought to hard for their own right to read—a fight that may one day even favor our own similar struggle, brought on if we don’t start acting like adults once more, capable and willing to discuss challenging ideas.

The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)^†Oh gads, yeah. I believe it was sixth grade? I remember our teacher, Mrs. Smith, who had beautiful black and silver hair, and she was the first teacher who really made the effort to get students to be aware teachers were normal beings just like us. Sometimes she got tongue tied when she read aloud, but just kept going, which also cued us into the idea that, wow, teachers aren’t perfect creatures either! We loved her all the more for it. Anyway, in college I built up a beautiful collection of Hawthorne for my at-home library, though I no longer have them. Lost to a thief, sadly.

1984* (George Orwell)^†I remember watching the movie long after I had read the book, going into it thinking, “Really, I just remember a razor shortage. Nothing else.” If memory serves, they didn’t mention that in the film, but Julia had hairy armpits, which I guess was meant to hint at that tidbit. I wasn’t aware at the time of anything called dystopian fiction, and when I later learned what that genre was, it never really occurred to me to remember 1984 as under its umbrella. In fact, for a very long time I avoided it because, truth be told, it’s a little terrifying to contemplate living the lives some of these books depict.

The Lord of the Rings (J. R. R. Tolkien)^†Never read it, which surprises my son to no end, given how much I love Narnia. I fell asleep watching the first film and have had an instinctive aversion to it since then. He’s slowly working on talking me away from that, so we’ll see where this leads.

The Bible – I’m embarrassed to confess I’ve never read the whole book cover to cover. Also, that some of it is so very dense I get discouraged. I don’t know all the history or culture of the different eras, either, so at times something indicative of some particular circumstance flies right over my head. I do try to read a little every day, though, and confess I get hung up reading John a lot. He’s my fave.

Catcher in the Rye* (J.D. Salinger)^†This story is an example of why we should give books a second chance, as I once hated it with a passion. Then I was shamed into re-reading it and, although it still didn’t get me super excited, I could appreciate it a lot more than I did when I first read it, which was in eighth grade.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)^†I no longer recall what brought me to be as obsessed with Alice and Lewis Carroll as as I was in my young years. Nevertheless I love this book. I love this book. Did I mention how much I love this book? Was absolutely addicted to it and everything Alice as a child and, to a certain extent, still am. My poetry and even drawings I once did were heavily influenced by it. Carroll has lots of other offerings as well, so especially for those who only know about Alice, I highly recommend you check out his other work. There’s also a very fascinating book by Anne Clark, The Real Alice, that lays out the actual lives of the historical people, how they knew each other, what their relationships were like and how and where they got on in life. Totally not to miss. By the way, on a visit to New York City I saw a shop, whose name I forget, that is everything and anything Alice: of course tea sets, but also playing cards, stationary, bed sheets, backpacks, decorative boxes, dishes, shoelaces, tissues, scarves, hats, posters, lamps, tee shirts, puzzles, lockets, soft toys, dolls, pillows, mirrors, clocks, spoons, bookmarks, herbal teas, diaries, glasses, candles, make-up brushes, cake toppers, tapestries, stickers, socks, blankets, night lights and so much more that you could imagine!

Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)^†Avoided it for years. Why? Because I’m stupid, that’s why! I could probably have been talked into reading it but there were too many others before it on my list of “want to read.” Then I saw the movie a couple of years ago and realized what I’d been missing. I was instantly captured. I now own the book and it’s on my 2021 Reading Challenge list. I even want to sew little Little Women clothes for dolls and have collected a few Little Women themed books that my son jokes are really just fan fiction.

The Odyssey* (Homer)^†Not a great big fan of The Iliad, though it was ok. But when I got to The Odyssey I could barely stop reading. It is very thrilling and I know some of my poetry came from this. When my son was little he, like everyone else, loved to be told a story, and did make a request one day in the car. I told him the cyclops portion and he was so intrigued he wanted immediately to go to the library to find a book with more! It turned out Mary Pope Osborne did indeed have a kids’ edition of The Odyssey (abridged, perhaps; I don’t recall). I loved the translation even better than how I told it: for instance, when the other cyclops demand, “Who did this to you?” the blinded one says, “No man did this.” (I had said “nobody.”) “Well,” they conclude, “if no man did this, then it must be the gods’ doing and therefore is meant to be.” (or something like that – the point is the difference between “no man” and “no one/nobody”). I was so charmed by it!