I'd like to talk about a book I haven't read!

The title of the book is "How to talk about books you haven't read". First let me tell you this is no joke. The book is real and sells for $14. Check it out on Amazon if you don't believe me. The gist of the book is that a truly cultivated person should not read books but be able to talk about them by understanding how they are related to other books and where they fit into our culture.

That's an interesting argument. As soon as I read the first page I got the author's point right away. I closed the book and put it back on the shelf. Never bought it or opened it again. I can easily talk about it for hours. I am the kind of person who doesn't read much anyway so if I didn't read this one I am actually very qualified to talk about it.

The only problem with that book is that it's full of text from start to finish when its argument is that you only need to read the title and table of contents of any book in order to really understand it. According to the author, reading a book in all its detail from the first to the last page does disservice to your understanding of it. Perhaps it would have been better if this book's pages were left blank with a "no-need-to-read" note in them. I think so. The author would have made his point so much better this way and it would have been the easiest $14 ever written.

Do you see how much I have written already about the book? And I can keep going. I am so happy I got the gist of it right away without reading it And saved myself $14! :)

http://www.thinkaloo.com