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Uber User
Posts: 770
Location: SC, USA | I just found this article on i09. It connects to the Confessions post from earlier today. The article lists 11 SF books that current authors believe that people pretend they have read without actually reading. I have actually read 5 of these. How did you do? http://io9.com/5924625/10-science-fiction-novels-you-pretend-to-have-read-and-why-you-should-actually-read-them | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1031
Location: UK | I did horribly badly! Only read Dune and 1984,though Foundation, Strange and Norrell,the Stapledons and The Long Tomorrow are all on my TBR.Come back in a year's time and my showing should be a lot better! 
Edited by dustydigger 2012-07-10 9:26 PM
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Uber User
Posts: 456
| Looks like I'm missing three (Gravity's Rainbow, The Long Tomorrow, and Infinite Jest). I've been wanting to read Infinite Jest for the longest time, but just haven't gotten to it. It's a curious list - it's hardly what it purports to be: "books that everybody pretends to have read". Some are relatively obscure, while others (fully half the list, based on WWE reading stats) are much more popular than, say, Alice in Wonderland. In fact, one of them, Dune, may be the most read book in the WWE database! If you're any kind of genre reader at all, it's near the top of the heap in terms of the likelihood that you've read it.
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Uber User
Posts: 770
Location: SC, USA | @Engelbrect Agreed, curious list. While quotes from some of the authors are included, I'd like to see who the contributing jury was.
I can understand adding the long books, like Cryptonomicon and Strange and Norrell--they are not only long but the authors have a style not everyone would like. And, well Pynchon is Pynchon (I have not read Gravity's Rainbow either). But... Foundation.... I started and finished the book on a plane from New Orleans to Charlotte. I don't see the difficulty there with language, concept and certainly not with availability.
A few years ago I would not have been knowledgeable enough to have pretended to have read the Stapletons or The Long Tomorrow  | |
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Uber User
Posts: 526
Location: UK | It's a bit dull, though, Foundation. I only read it myself because of the Hugo List (as a prerequisite for Foundation's Edge, and because The Mule won a Retro Hugo.) It wasn't bad, but I wouldn't have chosen to read it, and I don't think I'd have been much poorer for it. I think it's one that's more historically important than relevant today.
I've read five of them. I mentioned Stapledon and Delany in the other thread. I've never felt very inclined to read Gravity's Rainbow, and I'm not familiar with The Long Tomorrow and Infinite Jest. | |
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Uber User
Posts: 37
| I've read only 4 so far (Dune, Strange/Norrel, Foundation, 1984). Though I guess properly I should say I've read them all, of course I have, just like everyone else  . | |
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Uber User
Posts: 794
| I haven't read "The Long Tomorrow" (what an idiosyncratic choice!) or Infinite Jest. I haven't read Star Maker either although I have read Nebula Maker (apparently the first draft of SM) which wasn't very good. | |
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Confessions II: Which of these books have you pretended to have read?