When You Don’t Have Cliff Notes

Got no time to read all those “must read” books? Pierre Bayard, a Paris University literature professor, tells you how to pretend you’ve read them in his book, HOW TO TALK ABOUT BOOKS YOU HAVEN’T READ?

Bayard says he’s even lectured students on books that he either hasn’t read or has only skimmed. He says his point is there are many ways to read a book, including skimming or reading only part of it. Paradoxically, he says his real purpose in writing the book was to encourage people to read more.

According to Bayard, the book “is told by a fictional personality who boasts about not reading and is obviously not me. This is not a book written by a nonreader.”

Or so he says, anyway.