Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cangel]

I was chatting with a fellow expat the other night and he rattles off a laundry list of books he's said he's read, from famous authors to rather obscure authors, classics to current best sellers. The whole time I'm thinkin, "bull sh!t." Not that I doubt he hasn't read plenty, but based on my own experience in, well, not telling the truth, I just assumed he was full of it. Anyway, what books do you claim to have read (to completion) but haven't? Here's my list:

War and Peace
Moby Dick
The Grapes of Wrath
Little Women

All of these I have read a little but never to completion...

[mikowee]

I don't understand why anyone would boast about how many books they've read. The only thing I exaggerate is the number of girls I've had. I kind of lost count after 500 though.

[JMO]

Ulysses by James Joyce but sometimes claimed that I have. I'm not sure why.

I have read War and Peace several times. Every year my family would stop watching tv for lent so I would read even more than usual. I got into a habit of reading War and Peace every year. A fantastic book. I don't know why I didn't read Ulysses. It was sitting in my house but to my knowledge no one read it. I had to read Grapes of wrath for Uni and likewise Moby Dick.

[VanIslander]

Ever since my grade seven classmates saw my picture in the local newspaper as part of the few "500-Club" library book reading program members... I have been UNDER-ESTIMATING how many books I have read. "Book worm" is one of the nicer names I've been called.

There are readers and non-readers.

It's okay to be either. Though there are pressures...

[oneofthesarahs]

I've read a lot of books, but I've never been able to get through A Tale of Two Cities. It's just sooooo boring. I can never make it through the first few chapters. As a huge literary snob, I rarely admit this though.

[JJJ]

All the Harry Potter books. (I teach elementary).

[seoulsucker]

Brave New World. I've tried several times to finish this, but it just didn't do anything for me.

[happeningthang]

Here's some "classics" I attempted at some stage, but could never get through to the end...

Albert Camus' The Plague -

William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying

James Joyce The Ulysses

Never got the chance to lie about it though, for some reason it never came up.

[pdx]

Nothing. I'm pretty up front about the fact that I never finished some, like As I Lay Dying, or that I only read that tiny part of Beowulf that we had to in high school. I don't think there's any point in lying about what you've read, so I just tell the truth either I didn't finish it because I'm too stupid to read it, or it bored me to death. If your book bores me to death, then I don't need to read it.

[Ody]

i've been more worried about saying i've read books that i read too long ago to fully remember, or possibly comprehend at the same level if i read them today. Foucault comes to mind.

[Young FRANKenstein]

Heart of Darkness... always fall asleep by page 17 or so. I wake up and realize I don't remember what I had just read. Lather Rinse Repeat.

Don Quixote... only because I have several of the Picasso prints around my apartment, and people naturally ask if I've read it.

[eamo]

[jajdude]

I read some of The Grapes of Wrath and got sick of it because he wrote the dialogue the way the characters spoke, and I found it too annoying to go on.

[Zoobot]

I guess Ulysses wins the "book that everyone lies about" award!
My ex and I started reading it aloud to each other over campfires, but we didn't make it past pg. 25. I will someday read it in its entirety!

I've also lied about Beowulf, which I've only read parts of...

That's about all. I'm usually pretty honest when it comes to these things.

I can't believe someone finds Dickens boring! I can't understand that at all!

[dutchy pink]

The Cat Who Walked Through Walls. Robert Heinlen

I read 3 or 4 of his books, but i lied about reading this one time.
The guy asked me what it was about and i said it's about this cat than can walk through walls.

I quickly changed the subject