A review in the Economist of How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read.

“There is more than one way not to read, the most radical of which is not to open a book at all.” Thus begins Pierre Bayard’s witty and provocative meditation on the nature, scale and necessity of non-reading. With thousands of books published every year, it is, he points out, the primary way people relate to books. And even those books they do get round to opening remain in a sense outside their knowledge. “Even as I read”, he observes, “I start to forget what I have read.”

The first section explores the four categories of unread books, into at least one of which Mr Bayard places every book he mentions. These are the “books unknown to me”, the “books I have skimmed”, the “books I have heard about” and the “books I have forgotten”. No exceptions are admitted, even for books he himself wrote. Each category is illustrated with an example from literature.

More here. (Thanks to Dukhiram for the link.)