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Also by Pierre Bayard:

How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read, October 2007
Hardcover

HOW TO TALK ABOUT BOOKS YOU HAVEN'T READ
By: Pierre Bayard

Bloomsbury Publishing
October 2007
On Sale: October 30, 2007
208 pages
ISBN: 1596914696
EAN: 9781596914698
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction

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.

Media Buzz

Morning Edition - December 25, 2007
Morning Edition - December 14, 2007