Books you lied about reading?

A survey was recently taken in the UK asking people to list books they had lied about reading.  Here are the results.

1. 1984 by George Orwell (42%) 
2. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (31%)
3. Ulysses by James Joyce (25%)
4. The Bible (24%)
5. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (16%)
6. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (15%)
7. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (14%)
8. In Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust (9%)
9. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama (6%)
10. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (6%)

Is there a book you have lied about reading?

Comments

[Marc Brewer]

I actually didn't read your list, but I will tell everyone that I did

[prying1]

I guess my mentality is different than some. I ask WHY would a person lie about reading a book?

I can only guess it is a desire to impress the person being lied to.

Not saying I've never lied because that would be a lie but never considered trying to fool people this way.

I try more devious methods like charm, wit and flattery (which seldom work) to impress people.

(By the way. Great answer Marc!)

[Joe Puleo]

I don't know that I've ever lied about reading a book but I've only read one of the books on your list.

[Scott Laming]

I'm in the same boat as you Joe. I've only read 1984. I tried to read Obama's other book, Audacity of Hope, but ended up giving up about 1/3 of the way in. Brief History of Time has been on my to be read list for a while though.

[Duncan]

I've read four of the books on the list (Dawkins, Orwell, Obama, and Hawking), plus 100 pages each of Ulysses and War and Peace, the entire New Testament and major chunks of the Old, plus the first two volumes of the Proust. I've also read Rushie's The Satanic Verses, which I'd bet more people have lied about reading than Midnight's Children (which I can't remember if I've read).

I think I'd be more likely to lie by denying that I'd read a book that I DID read, rather than claiming I'd read one I hadn't. For the big titles, it is almost more impressive (if that matters to someone) to say bluntly that I haven't read it and don't want to.