TOW #24: IRB (How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read)

Goal: Stay on task in explaining the devices.

From chance encounters with famous authors to (rare) incidents of forgetting to read for a class, we all experience potentially awkward situations when we must discuss books we haven’t fully read. Luckily, French author Pierre Bayard is here to save the day with his book, How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read.

Bayard’s straightforward style of writing makes it easy to understand his ideas and suggestions. In addition to the numerous examples he uses (which I mentioned in my first IRB post), the author gives his tips in the form of simple commands. In the section about talking to authors, he writes, “There is only one sensible piece of advice to give to those who find themselves having to talk to an author about one of his books without having read it: praise it without going into detail.” Admittedly, the sentence preceding the command is a bit lengthy, but Bayard simplifies his writing where it counts. Almost everybody likes cut-and-dry rules and those are what he provides.

Bayard often philosophizes about the nature of books and reading, which may seem boring to the casual reader but fascinating to the truly interested. For example, Bayard muses, “What we preserve of the books we read—whether we take notes or not, and even if we sincerely believe we remember them faithfully—is in truth no more than a few fragments afloat, like so many islands, on an ocean of oblivion…” Bayard uses logic like this to justify the idea that actually reading books isn’t much more valiant than skimming or researching, and in many cases is a waste of time (that could be spent reading worthwhile material). This especially appeals to the portion of the audience that is typically loyal to books and might feel guilty or wrong in forgoing the actual reading experience.

For the organization and discussion ideas, How to Talk is already a worthwhile guide, but the occasional stream of consciousness writing about books as a concept gives it an extra entertaining edge that makes it worthwhile as a book (and not just a how-to guide).


*I repeat from IRB post 1: Page citations are difficult, as this is being read on Kindle Cloud.