How To Win Friends and Influence Uncles

“It seems hard to believe that a book called “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read” would hit the best-seller lists in France, where books are still regarded as sacred objects and the writer occupies a social position somewhere between the priest and the rock star. The ostensible anti-intellectualism of the title seems more Anglo-Saxon than Gallic, an impression reinforced by the epigram from Oscar Wilde: “I never read a book I must review; it prejudices you so.””

HOW TO TALK ABOUT BOOKS YOU HAVEN’T READ
By Pierre Bayard -translated by Jeffrey Mehlman. 185 pp. Bloomsbury. $19.95.

“Faking It” By JAY McINERNEY {The Times}