Pierre Bayard

Do we really need to read every book that's published, or do we just need to be able to talk about them convincingly?
Already a runaway bestseller in France that's racking up international press coverage even before it's published in English, How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read is a provocative, witty and mischievous book for lovers of literature (and those who pretend they are!).

Literature professor and psychoanalyst Pierre Bayard argues that "non-reading" can be just as useful an act as reading; 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 works by Graham Greene, Umberto Eco, Paul Valery and many others, Bayard examines the many kinds of "non-reading" (forgotten books, unknown books, books discussed by others, books we've skimmed briefly) and the many potentially nightmarish situations in which we are called upon to discuss our reading with others (in class, with our loved ones, with the book's author, etc.).

At heart, this delightfully tongue-in-cheek book challenges everyone with reader guilt, and will appeal to lovers of Lynne Truss' Eats, Shoots, and Leaves: A Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.

"Books aren't so much made to be read as they are to be lived with." (Pierre Bayard)

"It may well be that too many books are published, but by good fortune, not all must be read ... A survivor's guide to life in the chattering classes ... evidently much in need." (New York Times)

"Brilliant ... A witty and useful piece of literary sociology, designed to bring lasting peace of mind to the scrupulous souls who grow anxious whenever the book-talk around them becomes too specific." (London Review of Books)

"Bayard goes beyond the shallow, insisting that it is possible 'to have a passionate conversation about a book that one has not read, including, perhaps especially, with someone else who has not read it.' It's a bold statement, but one that would sound controversial only to someone who has not been to university." (Globe and Mail, April 7, 2007)