How to Talk about Books You Haven’t Read
About this audiobook
In this delightfully tongue-in-cheek book, a #3 bestseller in France, literature professor Bayard contends that, in this age of infinite publication, the truly cultivated person is not the one who has read a book but the one who understands the book’s place in our culture. Using examples from works by Graham Greene, Umberto Eco, and others (and even the movie Groundhog Day), Bayard examines the many kinds of “non-reading” (forgotten books, books discussed by others, books we’ve skimmed briefly) and the many potentially nightmarish situations in which we are called upon to discuss our reading with others.
The book urges everyone who’s ever felt guilty about missing some of the great books to consider what reading means, how we absorb books as a part of ourselves, and why we spend so much time talking about what we have, or haven’t, read.
About the author
Pierre Bayard is a professor of French literature at the University of Paris VIII and a psychoanalyst. He is the author of Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? and of many other books. Jeffrey Mehlman is a professor of French at Boston University and the author of a number of books, including Emigré New York. He has translated works by Derrida, Lacan, Blanchot, and other authors.
Grover Gardner has recorded more than 650 audiobooks since beginning his career in 1981. He's been named one of the "Best Voices of the Century" as well as a "Golden Voice" by AudioFile magazine. Gardner has garnered over 20 AudioFile Earphones Awards and is the recipient of an Audio Publishers Association Audie Award, as well as a three-time finalist. In 2005, Publishers Weekly deemed him "Audiobook Narrator of the Year." Gardner has also narrated hundreds of audiobooks under the names Tom Parker and Alexander Adams. Among his many titles are Marcus Sakey's At the City's Edge, as well as Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and John Irving's The Cider House Rules. Gardner studied Theater and Art History at Rollins College and received a Master's degree in Acting from George Washington University. He lives in Oregon with his significant other and daughter.
