don't read
Do you read as much as you wish you did? Do you pretend that you’ve read more than you have?

I’m not going to hide anymore. I recently, openly confessed that, except for during that rushed last moment before a paper is due and I don’t have any post-millennium “related works” in the related works section, I haven’t read an academic paper this year.

I also haven’t been reading books. A month ago I hauled off a pile of (presumably) wonderful non-fiction books to the used bookstore that I hadn’t touched. I’m in a bookclub, where we read one fiction book a month. I haven’t even purchased the last four books.

(So you don’t think I’m illiterate, I’ll also confess that I read, well skim, the WSJ and the NYTimes everyday, and I justed finished a historical novel, Loving Frank. So it isn’t like I’m totally not reading, it is just that I don’t read nearly as much as I wish I did.)

Last week I read a review of yet-another-book-I-won’t-read called “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read.” And since I read the review, I feel qualified to give my opinion on the book without having read it. It sounds great! Apparently the main gist is:

Not to worry, Mr. Bayard counsels. Just because one hasn’t read a book doesn’t mean that one cannot talk about it with the same confidence as someone who has, and perhaps with greater acumen, not having to get bogged down in messy details.

What a relief! I will attend my bookclub this month, with or without having the book, and I will give my opinion!

I know I’m not alone in hiding my non-reading. Particularly in the field of research, where we feel we should be reading everything related to our own research, it is hard to admit we aren’t. The most concrete piece of evidence I have that researchers fake it is at least 50% of the papers that reference my research have significantly misstated my research findings. If those authors are not reading my papers, then oh my gosh, who is??