{"id":23812,"date":"2014-01-17T09:16:21","date_gmt":"2014-01-17T14:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=23812"},"modified":"2019-11-09T11:08:05","modified_gmt":"2019-11-09T16:08:05","slug":"have-you-read-these-books-or-have-you-lied-about-having-read-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/01\/17\/have-you-read-these-books-or-have-you-lied-about-having-read-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Have you read these books or have you lied about having read them?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben Domenech<\/a> discusses the books that “everyone must read”, but very few have actually done more than turn the pages a bit, or perhaps scanned the Wikipedia<\/em> entry for:<\/p>\n

The truth is, there are lots of books no one really expects you to read or finish. War and Peace<\/em>? The Canterbury Tales<\/em>? The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire<\/em>? Announcing that you\u2019ve finished those books might surprise a lot of people and make them think you\u2019re abnormal or anti-social, unless you\u2019re an English or History major who took their reading very, very seriously. Perhaps the shift to ebook format will diminish this reading by osmosis \u2013 and book sales, too \u2013 since people can afford to be honest about their preference for 50 Shades<\/em> over The Red and the Black<\/em> since their booklists are hidden in their Kindles and iPads.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s my attempt to drill this down to a more realistic list: books that are culturally ubiquitous, reading deemed essential, writing everyone has heard of\u2026 that you\u2019d be mildly embarrassed to admit you\u2019ve never read.<\/p>\n

10. Atlas Shrugged<\/em>, Ayn Rand<\/strong>: The libertarian moment has prompted a slew of people to lie about reading Ayn Rand, or to deploy the term \u201cRandian\u201d as a synonym for, say, competitive bidding in Medicare reform without even bothering to understand how nonsensical that is.<\/p>\n

9. On the Origin of Species<\/em>, Charles Darwin<\/strong>: Many pro-evolutionists online display no understanding that the pro-evolution scientific community rejects the bulk of Darwin\u2019s initial findings about evolution.<\/p>\n

8. Les Miserables<\/em>, Victor Hugo and A Tale of Two Cities<\/em>, Charles Dickens<\/strong>: Virtually every bit of literature about the French Revolution could be tied here, though ignorance of it might inspire fun future headlines, such as \u201cDe Blasio Brandishes Knitting Needles, Calls For \u2018The People\u2019s Guillotine\u2019 To Be Erected In Times Square.\u201d<\/p>\n

7. 1984<\/em>, George Orwell<\/strong>: A great example of a book people think they have read because they have seen a television ad. On Youtube<\/em>.<\/p>\n

6. Democracy in America<\/em>, Alexis De Tocqueville<\/strong>: Politicians are the worst about this, quoting and misquoting the writings of the Tocqueville without ever bothering to actually read this essential work. But politicians do this a lot \u2013 with The Federalist Papers<\/em> and The Constitution, too.<\/p>\n

5. The Wealth of Nations<\/em>, Adam Smith<\/strong>: Smith\u2019s invisible hand is all that many people seem to know about his work, but his contributions were more sophisticated than that, rejecting a simplistic view of self-interest and greed as the motivating factors in a healthy economy.<\/p>\n

4. Moby Dick<\/em>, Herman Melville<\/strong>: If you haven\u2019t managed this one yet, consider that William F. Buckley, Jr. did not actually read this until he was 50, remarking then to friends: \u201cTo think I might have died without having read it.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. The Art of War<\/em>, Sun Tzu<\/strong>: Misunderstood and misapplied by people who\u2019ve never bothered to read it, Sun Tzu\u2019s advice is as much a guide to war as it is to avoiding combat via deception and guile, and to only fight battles one is certain of winning.<\/p>\n

2. The Prince<\/em>, Niccolo Machiavelli<\/strong>: Viewed by people who don\u2019t understand the context as a guide to mendacious political gamesmanship and the use of hypocrisy and cruelty as political tools, Machiavelli\u2019s work is likely a brilliant work of sarcastic trolling which contradicts everything else he wrote in life \u2013 which is one reason it was dedicated, sarcastically, to the Medicis who exiled and tortured him.<\/p>\n

1. Ulysses<\/em>, James Joyce<\/strong>: I own this book but have never read it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, there are a few books I’m ashamed to admit I’ve never read or, in the wonderful phrase used on the Bujold mailing list, “bounced off”. I’ve read lots of Rand’s non-fiction, but have only ever finished We, the Living<\/em><\/a> in her fiction works. I have read Nineteen Eighty-Four<\/em>, and own copies of most of the others, but haven’t finished most of them (and haven’t even begun with the Darwin, Dickens, Hugo, or Melville titles).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ben Domenech discusses the books that “everyone must read”, but very few have actually done more than turn the pages a bit, or perhaps scanned the Wikipedia entry for: The truth is, there are lots of books no one really expects you to read or finish. War and Peace? The Canterbury Tales? The History of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,28],"tags":[1080,67,130,354,1318],"class_list":["post-23812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-media","tag-adamsmith","tag-aynrand","tag-evolution","tag-georgeorwell","tag-niccolomachiavelli"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-6c4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23812"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52591,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23812\/revisions\/52591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}