Pierre Bayard's How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read.

Pierre Bayard, How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read, Bloomsbury, 2007, NY

Great title eh? “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read.” Unfortunately it’s a one line gag and one line book.

Albeit written by a French psychoanalyst who teaches literature at Paris 7th and covering examples as diverse as Hamlet to “Groundhog Day,” it remains a one line book.

I did learn that Graham Greene's Rollo Martins became Orson Wells' Holly Martins in the "Third Man," however, which demonstrated that Bayard actually read that book.

If I were clever enough, I’d find a way to end with a comment about how I too have talked about a book I hardly read, but I cannot figure out how.