The Top Ten Books You Tell People You’ve Read (You Have Not!)

THE TOP TEN BOOKS YOU TELL PEOPLE YOU’VE READ (YOU HAVE NOT!)

10) Anything by Bukowski – People often romanticize the works of alcoholic authors, often overlooking some terrible flaws because it’s hip to be sloppy and mad. You’ve never actually sat down with a copy of Ham on Rye, but you tell just about everyone you meet that you have. The truth is, his stories miss the mark quite frequently. Oh, but you won’t hear any of it, though–because you’ve placed this drunken idiot on a pedestal. You equate being published in small American literary magazines with the Samizdat movement in Russia. Which it’s not. There’s a reason people’s works are pressed in small numbers, ya dig?

9) As I Lay Dying – It sounds like it could be the title of a shitty album (and I just found out it’s the name of a shitty band!), so it would definitely look good on your MySpace! Sadly, most of Faulkner’s books are bore-a-thons because he won’t use a period. Some people call it genius, I call it kitschy. Ever try to read Robinson Crusoe? No, because everyone told you what a boring-as-fuck novel it is. Most English professors will tell you, “long sentences flatten writing.” You know why? Because it’s true. Absalom! Absalom! and The Sound and the Fury were alright, but they took about a year to read because after five pages I was crumpled in a ball on the floor looking for a goddamn punctuation mark so I could catch my breath.

8) The Soft Machine – William Burroughs–much like the rest of the authors on this list– is another one of those niche writers that cliche adolescents revere without much regard for whether or not the stories they’re crafting are any good. Junky was a story with a plotline. Naked Lunch and this were just fucked up cut-up and intermingled bits of druggie crap. Like Bukowski, Burroughs is another example of the deification of addict authors. “Burn the books, kill the priests?” Sounds like a shitty punk anthem to me!

7) Something by JD Salinger OTHER THAN Catcher in the Rye – If you have read anything else, you’ve successfully wasted hours of your life that you will never get back. Nothing Salinger wrote was worth reading. I’ve spoken out against this guy’s books quite frequently in the past, and I’ll continue to do so because I don’t think any of them were any good. It’s not like you can sit there and refute me–you haven’t read anything else he wrote.

6) Poésies – You don’t even speak french you piece of shit! I dare you to say ‘Rimbaud’ aloud in my presence. Mike McGoff is the only exception here–I know you’ve probably read all his poems.

5) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – I haven’t read this one, but Nat tells me it’s a pretty commonly lied-about book. A quick Google search tells me that it’s a story about a guy who’s following his parent’s deaths from cancer. Sounds tragic. If you cry easily in social settings you’ll probably use this as an excuse for your softness. “I’m not a pussy! I’m just reading this really gut-wrenching book right now and I’m emotionally invested in it!”

4) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – You saw the movie and you think because a few passages appear verbatim that it’s the same thing. A few people use the same excuse for American Psycho, but they can’t get away with it because that one was pretty different from the book. Nevertheless, the underlying theme of this list continues: people see a book that glorifies the use of drugs and alcohol and they attach the “cool” label to it and wear it around like an anti-Bush button or something.

3) A bunch of Vonnegut Books – When Slaughterhouse Five was assigned to you in high school you skimmed a few chapters but didn’t read it. Or, your parents told you it was their favorite book and that made you REALLY not want to read it. But then a few years later you realized that it’s a classic and started telling people you loved it. Now you commonly bring up Cat’s Cradle and Breakfast of Champions when you’re sitting alone at the bar. God have mercy on whoever has to sit next to year and hear your bullshit.

2) Any Woman Writer (Plath, Austen, et. al) – see: all other entries. Plath was cool, but odds are you haven’t actually read any of her poems, you’re a scorned, recently-exed girlfriend and you’ll do and say just about anything for attention.

1) Anything Ginsberg – Not only is he a dumb Jew–he’s a shitty writer, too! I haven’t read anything he’s written, and for good reason. His name is commonly dropped alongside that of Kerouac (who’s one of the least interesting writers of the 20th century) so he rode the back of his gay compadre all the way to cult-status. All without publishing anything remotely interesting. When the most commonly referenced portion of your oeuvre is the first line of your first poem, you can pretty much assure the rest is horseshit.