Hello and welcome to a presentation of the Top Twenty Books British People Lie about
Having Read. In part one I covered books 1 to 10 which
you can see in the Info cards above. In this video I will cover Books 11 to 20
that British people pretend to have read. More than half of British people (56%) pretend
to have read a book, a nationwide study has revealed according to research commissioned
to mark the live broadcast on Sky Arts of The Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature
Festival. As for why they pretend to read certain books,
37% claimed they simply wanted to join in a conversation, while 31% said they did so
to seem more intelligent and 17% were trying to impress a date.
Number 11. 5% lied about having read A Brief History
of Time by Steven Hawking. Hawking wrote: ‘The universe doesn't allow
perfection.’ Number 12.
5% also lied about having read Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
For those who want to appear more intelligent than they are, Dostoevsky wrote: ‘It takes
something more than intelligence to act intelligently.’ And ‘The fear of appearances is the first
symptom of impotence.’ He also wrote: ‘The most offensive is not
their lying—one can always forgive lying—lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth—what
is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying.’
Number 13. 5% also lied about having read The Odyssey
by Homer. Homer Wrote:
‘Urge him with truth to frame his fair replies; And sure he will; for wisdom never lies.’
And: ‘Words empty as the wind are best left unsaid.’
Number 14. 4% lied about having read The Old Man and
The Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Still trying to impress that date? Hemingway
wrote: ‘A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human
beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.’
Number 15. 4% also lied about having read Lolita by Vladimir
Nabokov. Nabokov wrote:
‘The good reader is one who has imagination, memory, a dictionary, and some artistic sense.’
Number 16. 4% also lied about having read Ulysses by
James Joyce. Joyce wrote:
‘Life is too short to read a bad book.’ He also wrote:
‘I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy.’
and ‘Have read little and understood less.’
Number 17. 3% lied about having read The Tipping Point
by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell wrote:
‘We have, as human beings, a storytelling problem. We’re a bit too quick to come up
with explanations for things we don’t really have an explanation for.’
Number 18. 3% also lied about having read Sapiens: A
Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. Harari wrote:
‘Does happiness really depend on self-delusion?’ And:
‘Telling effective stories is not easy. The difficulty lies not in telling the story,
but in convincing everyone else to believe it.’
Number 19. 3% also lied about having read The Bell Jar
by Sylvia Plath. Plath wrote:
‘It never occurred to me to say no.’ Number 20.
2% lied about having read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
For those who lied because they simply wanted to join in a conversation, Ayn Rand wrote:
‘Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the
man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But
the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a
virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.’
And now here is a quick recap and I’ll be back soon with another BookTube Video.