How to talk about books you haven't read

I came across this book How to talk about books you haven't read by Pierre Bayard, a Paris University lit professor (it's translated from French). It was funny and I wish I'd read it earlier – could've saved me some mugging for A level Lit eh

One hugely insightful comment I read was (I'm paraphrasing; can't remember it word for word, obviously) that every act of reading is also an act of non-reading. A counter-gesture is what he called it. To have picked up a particular book from a shelf is to have made a decision not to read all the other books that exist. I forget, though, what conclusion was drawn from this, but no doubt it was deep, for it impressed me.

He also introduces a taxonomy of books

• UB: book unknown to me
• SB: book I have skimmed
• HB: book I have heard about, and
• FB: book I have read but forgotten

And for HB, he creates the symbols ++, +, -, and --, for what he has heard about them – extremely positive to extremely negative in that order. Brilliant.

Anyway, How to talk about books you haven't read is an SB for me; for those who're interested it's available at Borders, and there're more reviews here:

Times Online
Guardian
NY Times