On Pretending to Have Read Books

"I am writing a book,” says the man at the drinks party, in the old Peter Cook cartoon. “Neither am I,” replies his companion. 

Still makes me laugh. But would now work with “I am reading a book”, too. 

We have always been prone to exaggerate our capacity for books, but talking about specific books one has not read — let alone basing entire stand-up sets on them — used to be frowned upon. It sat somewhere between the spivviness of gate-crashing a private function and the cringe of having a scale replica of Michelangelo’s David on the mantelpiece.

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