20 Books People Pretend to Read (and Now Your Confessions?)

pretend ulyssesThe good folks at Book Riot con­duct­ed a sur­vey of 828 read­ers, hop­ing to find out what books they’ve faked read­ing. The top five books (all avail­able in our Free eBooks and Free Audio Books col­lec­tions) may not come as a sur­prise:

  1. Pride and Prej­u­dice by Jane Austen
  2. Ulysses by James Joyce
  3. Moby-Dick by Her­man Melville
  4. War and Peace by Leo Tol­stoy
  5. The Bible

Nor will the remain­ing 15 astound you (give or take a cou­ple). But we’ll let you head over to Book Riot for the com­plete list. Wait! Stop! Before you leave, let us know what books you’ve fudged before. It’s anony­mous and all in good fun. Look for­ward to your con­fes­sions.


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Comments (56)
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  • cheri says:

    hon­est to god, i’ve nev­er faked read­ing a book. no need. i just flat out say, “naw, i haven’t read it b/c i did­n’t want to”. in that cat­e­go­ry: moby dick, pride and prej­u­dice, most of dick­ens, lord of the rings, and f’in har­ry pot­ter.

  • sean says:

    book #5 … you can tell when some­one has read the whole bible … the become an athe­ist.

  • Glen says:

    The Faerie Queene

  • GameBoy says:

    I’ve bor­rowed Clock­work Orange from library like ten times, always gave up after first few pages. Huge amount of these made up words makes this book rather tir­ing to read.
    But at leat I do not say “yeah that’s great book, I’ve read it ten times.”.

  • Rebecca White says:

    I don’t fake read­ing books. All sum­mer I’ve been get­ting these lists: “how many of these classics/Young Adult favorites/etc. books have you read.” I don’t exag­ger­ate, even if I’ve read most of it (like the Bible) or seen the movie. For one thing, I have a death­ly fear of the humil­i­a­tion of being found out. For anoth­er, every­body I knows I read so much and so broad­ly — per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly — that I don’t have any­thing to prove.

  • John Conolley says:

    I make no bones about find­ing most of the clas­sics unread­able, although I did enjoy Moby Dick. I absolute­ly can’t bear James Joyce.

  • Richard Slattery says:

    Per­haps if you read Dublin­ers @ John Conol­ley you might gain an appre­ci­a­tion for Joyce. To dis­miss him so read­i­ly is to deprive your­self of the plea­sure of read­ing a giant of the lit­er­ary world, in any lan­guage or era.

  • Chris says:

    Well done for being hon­est. I lie con­stant­ly about the books I’ve read. It start­ed ear­ly: I nev­er read any Hen­ry James, Joseph Con­rad or Vir­ginia Woolf but wrote essays about all three whilst read­ing Eng­lish at uni­ver­si­ty. The same is true of Ten­nyson, Matthew Arnold and Robert Brown­ing. On the oth­er hand, I read all of The Faerie Queene, Ulysses and The Man With­out Qual­i­ties and bloody loved them. Par­adise Lost? Skills. I pre­tend to have read Dos­to­evsky but in fact can­not get past the first page usu­al­ly. Kaf­ka, the same. Saul Bel­low — urgh. Fitzger­ald, Hem­ing­way and any­thing by Don Delil­lo make my bow­els churn.

  • Bernard Krapcha says:

    I haven’t lied about read­ing any of them, but I will con­fess my thoughts on them.

    01. Pride and Prej­u­dice by Jane Austen
    02. Ulysses by James Joyce
    03. Moby-Dick by Her­man Melville
    04. War and Peace by Leo Tol­stoy
    05. The Bible
    06. 1984 by George Orwell
    07. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
    08. The Great Gats­by by F. Scott Fitzger­ald
    09. Anna Karen­i­na by Leo Tol­stoy
    10. Catch­er in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
    11. Infi­nite Jest by David Fos­ter Wal­lace
    12. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
    13. To Kill a Mock­ing­bird by Harp­er Lee
    14. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
    15. Jane Eyre by Char­lotte Bronte
    16. Crime and Pun­ish­ment by Fyo­dor Dos­to­evsky
    17. Wuther­ing Heights by Emi­ly Bronte
    18. Great Expec­ta­tions by Charles Dick­ens
    19. Har­ry Pot­ter (series) by J.K. Rowl­ing
    20. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dick­ens (21 men­tions)

    01 — read it — much bet­ter book than I thought it would be and I actu­al­ly liked it.
    02 — have read tiny bits of it, which is why I haven’t read it. If I ever decide to do pey­ote for the first time, I’ll bring it on the trip.
    03 — read it — real­ly liked it, but I could­n’t write a paper on it and get into all the “deprav­i­ty of man” sym­bol­ism, etc. Thought it was a kick ass book about some whacked out peo­ple stuck in an inter­coursed-up sit­u­a­tion with an obsessed mani­ac. Have it on my shelf.
    04 — tried to read it once and, in the mood I was in at the time, was bored out of my skull before I got five pages in. May give it anoth­er chance with a dif­fer­ent mood.
    05 — read more than once, some bits more than oth­ers. Have actu­al­ly stud­ied it a bit and dug into the orig­i­nal lan­guage of the New Tes­ta­ment. I think it should be part of any col­lege lev­el west­ern lit class, since with­out a work­ing knowl­edge of the Bible, you’ll miss most of the allu­sions in most of west­ern lit­er­a­ture. Have it on my shelf.
    06 — read it way more than once. One of my favorites. Try to avoid room 101. (And why isn’t “Brave New World” on this list? Because no one would lie about read­ing it since we’ve all read it?)
    07 — read it more than any of the oth­ers. Took a name from it, used it at more than one job. Hell, I know the names of the Tow­ers of the Teeth.
    08 — haven’t read it. Nev­er cared to. Had a mild inter­est in it gen­er­at­ed by the recent movie, but thought it sil­ly to read a book because a movie had been made of it and bought the Ban­di­ni quar­tet by John Fante instead.
    09 — famil­iar with the sto­ry line, but haven’t read it. Liked the mod­ern movie. Maybe I have a prob­lem with Tol­stoy’s works in gen­er­al?
    10 — one of the few books I haven’t read, but real­ly think I should. Not sure what I’m wait­ing for.
    11 — nev­er heard of it.
    12 — loved it. Used the name of the main char­ac­ter as my user name on an IRC chan­nel back when I was access­ing the web with a 2400 baud modem.
    13 — I think I read it, maybe not. It’s kind of fuzzy.
    14 — unin­ter­est­ed.
    15 — read it and thought it was an inter­est­ing sto­ry, but too far over­board, like “Love in the Time of Cholera” (which I haven’t read, but can tell it’s over­wrought from see­ing the pre­view of the movie).
    16 — a fan­tas­tic book. Read this one many times — more than any oth­er Dos­toyevsky nov­el. It’s great.
    17 — nev­er read. Nev­er cared.
    18 — know the sto­ry but nev­er cared to read it. If you’re talk­ing Dick­ens, “A Tale of Two Cities” is my favorite.
    19 — um, yeah — why in hell would any­one pre­tend to have read this? I can under­stand admit­ting that you read it, but pre­tend­ing?
    20 — anoth­er real­ly great book I’ve read time and time again. Syd­ney Car­ton is the only char­ac­ter in great clas­sic lit­er­a­ture I real­ly iden­ti­fied with and thought I could be, giv­en the time and place.

  • jaimie49er says:

    Dan­te’s Infer­no. I have NO idea why?!

  • Chris says:

    In fact I just lied about hav­ing read A Man With­out Qual­i­ties. I haven’t. It’s real­ly long!

  • Masha says:

    What do you mean by “fake read­ing”? How does some­one fake reads a book?

  • Biish says:

    I’ve been pre­tend­ing to read David Fos­ter Wallaces“s Infi­nite Jest for four sum­mers in a row. I’ve made it to page 96.

  • Masha says:

    “How does some­one fake read* a book?”

  • Masha says:

    I’ve tried to read Vir­gini­a’s Orlan­do 2 times and I can’t seem to “swim” with it. Please, help. Am I not nor­mal?

  • Carla Taylor says:

    Well I have to admit to fudg­ing many on your list. I most­ly fudged for high school lit­er­a­ture class­es. I can hon­est­ly say I attempt­ed to read:
    Ulysses (sev­er­al times) I JUST CANNOT STAND HIS STYLE OF WRITING.
    Every­thing by Kaf­ka gives me a mas­sive headache, lit­er­al­ly.
    1984 I have attempt­ed to read about 10 times. For some rea­son this book gives me a mas­sive headache as well. Read and HATED Ani­mal Farm.
    I did man­age to fin­ish Wuther­ing Heights, Jane Eyre, Great Expec­ta­tions, and the Bible. I tried to read Catch-22 but had to set­tle for the movie. I have read To Kill a Mock­ing­bird about 10 times. First read it when I was 12.
    My addi­tions to the “tried to read” list:
    Cry the Beloved Coun­try, by Alan Paton. Then I felt guilty for a long time.

  • Leah says:

    Grav­i­ty’s Rain­bow. I would­n’t real­ly say I faked it; I turned every page and read every word, but with zero com­pre­hen­sion or enjoy­ment. This was over 10 years ago when I forced myself to fin­ish every book I start­ed, think­ing there would be some kind of rev­e­la­tion by the end. After that expe­ri­ence, I now walk away from a book when­ev­er I get the feel­ing I might be wast­ing pre­cious min­utes of my life on some­thing that will bring me no plea­sure or insight.

  • Lars says:

    Fun­ny, because I read Grav­i­ty’s rain­bow, and nev­er had I such a great rev­e­la­tion or what­ev­er great feel­ing as hav­ing just read the last page of that book. Goose­bumps for hours! Ok, it a damn dif­fi­cult, obscure book, but that end­ing gets me every time.

  • Lars says:

    …but I can’t seem to keep myself from pre­tend­ing to have read Ulysses, even though I read only about one fourth of it. Have actu­al­ly read Dublin­ers and Young man, and loved these!

  • Leisureguy says:

    I imme­di­ate­ly thought of the game “Humil­i­a­tion” (I think it was called) in David Lodge’s won­der­ful nov­el Chang­ing Places. I’ve read quite a few (helped by the Great Books Pro­gram at St. John’s Col­lege, my alma mater), but haven’t yet made it through:

    Ulysses
    Moby Dick
    Infi­nite Jest (did buy a copy, though—does that count? :)
    Fifty Shades of Grey (what on earth is that doing in the list?)
    Har­ry Potter—read the first 3, then ran out of steam in 4.

  • Chris says:

    I am not ashamed of say­ing I only made it to page 550 of Infi­nite Jest. After my sui­cide attempt, I could­n’t bring myself to fin­ish it.

    And Joseph Heller. I have start­ed Catch-22 more times than I have start­ed any­thing in my life. I give up.

  • Sidney says:

    Took a col­lege class on “Ulysses” taught by a pro­fes­sor who wrote his doc­tor­al the­sis on that book. This is the only way to go if you hope to under­stand what you’re read­ing. Also took two semes­ters of “The Bible as Lit­er­a­ture” (Old and New Tes­ta­ments) from a pro­fes­sor who had a PhD. in Reli­gious Stud­ies. Also the way to go if you hope to under­stand THAT book. I read both “Great Gats­by” and “Jane Eyre” one sum­mer because I knew I was going to have to teach it to high school stu­dents in the fall. Teach­ing is by far the best way to learn things.

  • Gregory Balderstone says:

    I have car­ried Uly­sees around faith­ful­ly but I have yet to fin­ish it and now I can’t remem­ber where I was.

  • Jukka says:

    Once some­one said that take any book you want to read, and make a fake cov­er to it titled: “How to live with extra­or­di­nary large penis”. He said that would impress women. I haven’t tried it.

  • Brian Gonigal says:

    I’ve nev­er faked read­ing a book, but I thought it was inter­est­ing that while I gen­uine­ly have read #s 6–10 of the big list, the top five con­sists of two I’ve tried to get through mul­ti­ple times before giv­ing up in frus­tra­tion, two I’m just open­ly intim­i­dat­ed by their “dense” rep­u­ta­tion, and one I just tore through one week­end on a whim as a sort of con­text for the Zom­bie ver­sion that I was real­ly inter­est­ed in read­ing, yet nev­er got around to.

    Also, I was sur­prised to see 50 Shades on this list, rather than a list of books peo­ple pre­tend they *haven’t* read.

  • Kathy says:

    Lord of the Rings, the movie was great !

  • Yiannis says:

    I did­n’t know that there was such a thing as fake read­ing. But what does it mean? Peo­ple sit­ting with a book stack on their face just to show off or some­thing (as per pic)? Or that they say they have read such and such books which they have nev­er done?

  • Droy says:

    Read Moby Dick twice. My favorite book!
    Yes, read Dubin­ers to appre­ci­ate Joyce. Although it is quite depress­ing.

  • Droy says:

    Also, I own a copy of the first edi­tion of the Amer­i­can edi­tion of Ulysses only because it’s my favorite book cov­er design.

  • Woodraw says:

    .…I’ve actu­al­ly read every­thing except Ulysses, but I must admit I’ve faked read­ing that

  • Cindi says:

    I’m with Rebec­ca. I read so many books in so many gen­res, I feel guilty that I haven’t read some of the clas­sics. I HAVE read “Pride and Prej­u­dice;” too many times to count actu­al­ly. I’m always read­ing the Bible and I haven’t ever picked up the oth­ers. How­ev­er, I did start “Uncle Tom’s Cab­in” 2 years ago and still haven’t fin­ished it!

  • Bernhard says:

    I once faked read­ing the Kama­su­tra. Alas, this lie did­n’t live, nor did the rela­tion­ship…

  • Pete says:

    Grav­i­ty’s Rain­bow

  • Frank says:

    Tru­ly read TGG, TKAM, C+P (and Bros. Karamo­zov) and CITR. Read Ulysses but only after read­ing the Cliff Notes first. Even then, the “Cyclops” chap­ter was still incom­pren­si­ble. Pre­tend read the nov­els of Samual Beck­ett. Would­n’t you?

  • Thom says:

    I did read a few all the way through. 1984, CITR, TKAM, LOTR (but I skipped over the songs). I read Har­ry Pot­ter, out loud to my daugh­ter (yes all of them.) She loved when I did Dob­by’s voice (not like the movie, more like Yoda talk­ing for­ward with and Urdu accent).

    Catch-22 was hilar­i­ous, but for some rea­son I just put it down and moved on with­out fin­ish­ing.

    Jane Austen and the Brontes were… well…I gnawed off my arm and escaped.

    As for the rest of them, I just know a few pas­sages that make me look smart when I quote them. If some­one engages me in a deep­er dis­cus­sion about those, I spill a drink on myself and run away.

  • Mary A says:

    Final­ly, some­one who admits read­ing Har­ry Pot­ter! My sit­u­a­tion was the same‑a daugh­ter (just the age of Hermione) and we read them all togeth­er, then again indi­vid­u­al­ly mul­ti­ple times. I am a high school Eng­lish teacher and read Wuther­ing Heights and Heart of Dark­ness (Con­rad) in order to teach them, as well as Franken­stein, Brave New World, 1984, lots of Shake­speare and much oth­er “dark side” British literature.The thing about “the canon” of west­ern lit­er­a­ture is that they (both the authors and those who read them and were influ­enced by them) did­n’t have TV, just lots of time on their hands to con­tem­plate the human con­di­tion.

    At the oppo­site end of the spec­trum, I have also read Twi­light and Hunger Games series (and oth­ers) to keep up with what the kids at school are reading.I sur­vived with­out hav­ing to gnaw off my arm. :-) Now when I have time to read some­thing for plea­sure, I try to pick a book of lit­er­ary mer­it, but not one that will make me feel stupid…or want to bang my head against a wall (e.g., Glass Cas­tle, Life of Pi,The Dev­il in the White City, Brief Won­drous Life of Oscar Wao, cer­tain­ly no Joyce or Dostoevsky!Just good read­ing.).

    And maybe “fake read­ing” some­thing is lis­ten­ing to it on audio? That’s how I have got­ten through some of those I kept putting down when I was try­ing to actu­al­ly read hard copies, like Austen and the Brontes.

  • ukh says:

    In hind­sight I wish I had faked read­ing some of them rather than actu­al­ly wast­ing my pre­cious time.

  • Margaret Rose STRINGER says:

    Why would any­one have to pre­tend to’ve read “Pride and Prej­u­dice”, I won­der? — ter­rif­ic, absolute­ly read­able book.
    Whilst I appre­ci­ate ukh’s com­ment, I’ve nev­er stuck with a book I was­n’t real­ly enjoy­ing: those are the ones I give to char­i­ty.
    As for Kathy … “The Lord of the Rings” *mar­vel­lous* books: did­n’t even both­er with the movies once I’d seen the first few min­utes of ‘The Broth­er­hood’.

  • Jake A. says:

    I’ve read a few sto­ries in The Dublin­ers. It remind­ed me of Buscemi’s movie “Trees Lounge”, a slice of life that does­n’t give a defin­i­tive end­ing. Rather, you get the real world sense that life goes on. I think it’s great to broad­en your hori­zons through lit­er­a­ture. How­ev­er, form your own opin­ion on books rather than rely­ing on some­one else’s opin­ion. And don’t con­tin­ue any book that does­n’t meet your needs in some­way.

  • Leon says:

    read 4 of those. Pride and Prej­u­dice is on my list. The New Tes­ta­ment was very inter­est­ing, in an edu­ca­tion­al mys­ti­cal sym­bol­ic ancient text kind of way. I pre­tend­ed I was an alien life form try­ing to under­stand human­i­ty and it actu­al­ly made it a very inter­est­ing read.

    War and Peace is not a hard read at all. Caman guys. It’s just long. Put two or three of those longer books you read on a week­ly basis togeth­er and you make one War and Peace. And you should read it, it will lit­er­al­ly change your life. Okay at the very least, you will real­ly like it. I don’t know many peo­ple who have ACTUALLY read it who dis­liked it. And it’s one of my faves.

    But post-Dublin­ers Joyce is too bizarre for me.

  • Jessica says:

    I have read #1 and # 5 on the list in their entire­ty. I have read the New Tes­ta­ment more than once too, and I am not “an athe­ist” after hav­ing read the Bible all of the way through either. I have not read any of the oth­ers and I flat out refuse to read Moby Dick. I will one day read War and Peace. I like the Russ­ian writ­ers.

  • Jelly says:

    Moby Dick.. I did­n’t “fake” read­ing it. But I tried to fin­ish it 3x’s. My high school Eng­lish teacher said this book changed his out­look on life! Huh?!

  • Sumaiya Hafiz says:

    Well i’ve read 5/6 books out­ta this list. I nev­er want­ed to read lords of the rings. And i think many pple fakes read­ing Har­ry Pot­ter. Bible i haven’t read but intend to read it along w/ Al Qur’an.

  • Kelly says:

    I’ve read Pride and Prej­u­dice 4 or 5 times. The only book I can think of that I’ve said I’ve read, but only real­ly par­tial­ly read is Brave New World, and I’ll fin­ish it some day. I do own a lot I haven’t read though.

  • muckle john says:

    War & Peace is not dif­fi­cult at all, nor is it bor­ing (well, except for a few short parts). I’ve read it 5 times. Real­ly. I high­ly rec­om­mend the trans­la­tion by Pevear & Volokhon­sky. It’s faith­ful to the orig­i­nal and has a lot of help­ful anno­ta­tions. DO NOT READ the Con­stance Gar­nett trans­la­tion! That’s what start­ed the inac­cu­rate ‘bor­ing and dif­fi­cult’ bad rap.

  • Sadie H. says:

    Pride and Prej­u­dice — read it. All of it.
    Ulysses by James Joyce — nev­er read, nev­er faked
    Moby-Dick by Her­man Melville — read it.
    War and Peace by Leo Tol­stoy — nev­er read, nev­er faked
    The Bible — read all of it, not nec­es­sar­i­ly in order
    1984 by George Orwell — read abridged ver­sion, but I don’t always men­tion that. ;)
    The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien — read the first book and the Hob­bit
    The Great Gats­by by F. Scott Fitzger­ald — not yet
    Anna Karen­i­na by Leo Tol­stoy — not yet
    Catch­er in the Rye by J.D. Salinger — nope
    Infi­nite Jest by David Fos­ter Wal­lace — nope
    Catch-22 by Joseph Heller — nope
    To Kill a Mock­ing­bird by Harp­er Lee — read it (Also met a child­hood friend of the author, fwiw.)
    Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James — nev­er.
    Jane Eyre by Char­lotte Bronte — read it, LOVED it.
    Crime and Pun­ish­ment by Fyo­dor Dos­to­evsky — nope
    Wuther­ing Heights by Emi­ly Bronte — read it, loved it
    Great Expec­ta­tions by Charles Dick­ens — abridged ver­sion
    Har­ry Pot­ter (series) by J.K. Rowl­ing — not yet
    A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dick­ens (21 men­tions) — abridged ver­sion

    I’ve also read Ben-Hur, Ivan­hoe, Gone With The Wind, The Phan­tom of the Opera, Franken­stein, The Scar­let Let­ter, many of Shake­speare’s works, and sev­er­al books by Jane Austen not men­tioned here.

  • Bruce T. says:

    I’ve read Joyce’s ULYSSES and enjoyed it. Haven’t read any of the the oth­er four.

  • beesal says:

    the writer of this blog asks peo­ple to anony­mous­ly com­ment on what books they have lied about reading…not to brag about how many books on the list you have read!…

  • BogMom says:

    The whale tale… nnI was sup­posed to read it in high school, but did­n’t. By read­ing a two or three para­graph sum­ma­ry of the plot, I man­aged to pass the test. nn“Moby Dick­n­Makes me sickn­But it sure does makenOld Lady [name with­held — the Eng­lish teacher ] tick.“nnDecades lat­er, when I was home­school­ing my son, I bor­rowed the book on tape from the library to lis­ten to dur­ing a long car trip. I expect­ed to lis­ten to a chap­ter or two before becom­ing bored and switch­ing to a dif­fer­ent book on tape. So I was sur­prised to be enchant­ed by the book, and stunned that I par­tic­u­lar­ly enjoyed the long pas­sages about whales, which is what I could­n’t get past when I was in high school. For­tu­nate­ly, my son liked the book, too. We lis­tened to the entire book.nnPrior to lis­ten­ing to the Moby Dick on tape, I would occa­sion­al­ly have a night­mare that I had nev­er grad­u­at­ed from high school, that my col­lege degree was invalid and/or my employ­er had found out and was fir­ing me. Lis­ten­ing to Moby Dick seemed to sat­is­fy my brain that I had final­ly fin­ished high school. I haven’t had that night­mare since.

  • Reader says:

    Pride and Prej­u­dice by Jane Austen (85 men­tions) — read it — don’t under­stand the obses­sion­nUlysses by James Joyce — pre­tend­ed to read it, and then pre­tend­ed to lis­ten to it on tape — IMPOS­SI­BLEn­Mo­by-Dick by Her­man Melville — pre­tend­ed to read it in HS and final­ly lis­tened to it on tape — aside from the 100 pages (hours?) on whale biol­o­gy it was pret­ty fab­u­lous­nWar and Peace by Leo Tol­stoy — remem­ber none of it but I think I read itnThe Bible — pre­tend­ed to read the New Tes­ta­ment for AP Eng­lish (poor Jew­ish girl was at a sig­nif­i­cant disadvantage.…)nThe Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien — ‘fessed up to nev­er read­ingn­Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James — can I pre­tend to NOT have read this tril­o­gy?? These books tru­ly rep­re­sent the decline and fall of our civ­i­liza­tion. nTwo oth­er books I have faked: n1. Can­dide (final­ly saw the opera and can­not believe I got an A on my oral pre­sen­ta­tion of this — proves my teacher nev­er read it either)n2. Mar­cel Proust in Eng­lish or French — tried both, have occa­sion­al­ly pre­tend­ed, but could not do it.

  • Plantagenet King says:

    I lied about read­ing your arti­cle — I skipped straight to the comments.nDidn’t read most of those either…

  • Grace Williams says:

    I said that I had read the Lord of the Rings tril­o­gy when in real­i­ty I had only read The Hob­bit, I could­n’t face read­ing the oth­er three.

  • Muhammad Mushir says:

    For heav­ens sake NOT Pride and Prej­u­dice please in this list. Peo­ple are read­ing it, PROOF we have six dif­fer­ent prints/editions in our mar­ket even.

  • Jackie Chan says:

    I read exact­ly half of Pride and Prej­u­dice. I got to page 200 and thought “If I keep going, I will have to read the equiv­a­lent of every­thing I just read again.” So I put it down and nev­er picked it up again. Appar­ent­ly some­thing actu­al­ly hap­pens in the last half. Two cou­ples get mar­ried at the end.

  • Arrow says:

    My con­fes­sion… hmm­mm, prob­a­bly, maybe when I was real­ly young, but had to be younger than when I was in 2nd grade. After sec­ond grade, and in sec­ond grade at most, I real­ly start­ed to get into read­ing. Although, I have read a chil­dren’s bible, when I was a kid, and I start­ed to read the real thick, long adult bible. As far as I got into that, I did actu­al­ly loose inter­est.

    And when I read now, if I ever zone out and catch myself. I read the last two pages again, no mat­ter what. Also, if I stop read­ing for a day, and pick it up the next day, I take off a page behind than where I stopped to remem­ber clear­ly.

  • Holden Caulfield says:

    Essen­tial­ly any­thing by Dick­ens except Bleak House. I just don’t like his writ­ing style. It’s so sen­ti­men­tal.

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.