I’m going to read Housekeeping by Marilyn Robinson. I’ve pretended to have read that book for over 25 years. Whenever people talk about how AMAZING it is, I always nod in complete agreement. I’m going in. I’m gonna read the fucker. I’ll report back!
What book have you lied about reading that you haven’t. It’s just us.
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Betsy Lerner 
Oh, oh, even worse, I’ve pretended to LIKE, no, LOVE, with a deep understanding, no less, Marcel Proust, V1, V2 and half of V3. The Madeleines! The chapter length sentences! The concept of Time and Memory!
Shoot me now. Except for a few pages, it was as boring as Marcel himself rambling on from his sickbed, gasping through his asthmatic throat in incomprehensible francais. Blecck!
Ohgoodgawd & good luck. I tried Housekeeping, but couldn’t slog it, much to the horror of my writer-friends who speak of this book with overwrought reverence.
My literary confession: I couldn’t get through “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”
I’ve never read To Kill a Mockingbird. Actually. Oh my god, the shame I feel. Please don’t tell anyone.
Anything by Dickens. Can I blame my high school? More recently, something by John Irving. I went to listen to him with two friends, one of whom is a big reader AND had given me Owen Meany for my 40th, which was a little while back. Nothing against that book, I just like to read what I want when I want. Still, both examples are very, very shameful. I, too, will report back. Sometime.
Everyone’s tastes are different–thank God, or only the same old shit would be published over and over. But I LOVED Owen Meany. I suggest giving that another shot.
Not so much lied as not yet read despite former good intentions: The Goldfinch and The Minaturist – both of which I bought over 2 years ago. Might have something to do with their length – both are over 400 pages.
I just googled Housekeeping – it’s a slim 227.
Skip Housekeeping and read Lila.
Gravity’s Rainbow. WTF???
I don’t think I’ve ever actually lied. I don’t hang around the sort of folks who discuss the classics, or books in general, so my ability or need to fake it is unnecessary. (thank god b/c I always seem to get in over my head every time I try on a little white lie)
Same here. I’m more likely to lie about the stuff I do read. At the moment I’m listening to several Audible books about the financial system (The Big Short, Too Big to Fail, Den of Thieves, etc.), which is bizarre since I have no money and little understanding of high finance, and embarrassing because I tend to obsess on a topic and play the same books over and over, the way other people listen to music. I don’t mind being a weirdo, but there’s no need to advertise the fact.
Averil: I miss your blog–and you, my friend.
I miss you, too. XOXO
The Divine Comedy. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. On the Origin of Species. Most of Shakespeare’s Kings. Proust, too. Embarrassing.
Unto the Sons by Gay Talese and The Public Burning by Robert Coover were two I didn’t finish. It’s rare for me to abandon a book, but these were exceptions.
Whether you want to lie about it or not, read the Thug Kitchen cookbook. Betsy, you’ll LOVE the language
or should I say you’ll love the FUCKING language
I loved Housekeeping but only quite liked Lila. Her characters always seem deeply asexual, with the possible marginal exception of Jack in Home. Still, I’m a huge fan. She has such reverence for humanity that it almost gives me hope. As for lies I have told: Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. I go around saying I didn’t like it. What I mean is that I disliked it so much I couldn’t read more than a few pages.
When I’m asked if I’ve read Proust I say, “Not in English.”
Anything by Jane Austen. I’ve attempted to read, yet failed to finish, a single one. What’s wrong with me?
My lies are usually more like “I put it down but haven’t gotten back to it yet. Not sure why.” But Housekeeping: if there’s one book I’d sell my soul to have written, it’s that one. So many layers of meaning. So many beautiful words. I love that book more than I ever loved my ex husband (and I loved him a lot).
So did you read it?