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How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read
Bayard, Pierre
Mehlman, Jeffrey (TRN)
Hardcover
$12.97 + $1.99 USPS S/H
$0.65 of your order (5%) will be donated to the school of your choice.

BOOK SUMMARY
The runaway French bestseller hailed by the New York Times as a survivors guide to life in the chattering classes. If civilized people are expected to have read all important works of literature, and thousands more books are published every year, what ar

BOOK SYNOPSIS

The runaway French bestseller hailed by the New York Times as “a survivor’s guide to life in the chattering classes.”

 

If civilized people are expected to have read all important works of literature, and thousands more books are published every year, what are we supposed to do in those awkward social situations in which we’re forced to talk about books we haven’t read? In this delightfully witty, provocative book, a huge hit in France that has drawn attention from critics around the world, literature professor and psychoanalyst Pierre Bayard argues that it’s actually more important to know a book’s role in our collective library than its details. Using examples from such writers as Graham Greene, Oscar Wilde, Montaigne, and Umberto Eco, and even the movie Groundhog Day, he describes the many varieties of “non-reading” and the horribly sticky social situations that might confront us, and then offers his advice on what to do. Practical, funny, and thought-provoking, How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read is in the end a love letter to books, offering a whole new perspective on how we read and absorb them. It’s the book that readers everywhere will be talking about—and despite themselves, reading—this holiday season.

AUTHOR BIO
Pierre Bayard is a professor of French literature at the University of Paris VIII and a psychoanalyst. He is the author of Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?and of many other books. Jeffrey Mehlman is a professor of French at Boston University and the author of a number of books, including Emigré New York. He has translated works by Derrida, Lacan, Blanchot, and other authors.

BOOK REVIEWS
It may well be that too many books are published, but by good fortune, not all must be readA survivors guide to life in the chattering classesevidently much in need.New York Times
 BrilliantA 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 With rare humor, Bayard liberally rethinks the social use [of literature] and the position of the readerRead or skim How to Talk About Books You Havent Read. Or simply listen to what people say about it so that you can talk about it with ease. In either case, you may not be able to forget it.Les Inrockuptibles

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MORE BOOK INFO
ISBN: 1596914696
ISBN(13-digit): 9781596914698
Dewey Decimal: 809
Library of Congress: 2007027178
Book Publisher: St Martins Pr
Language: ENG
No. of Pages: 185

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