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BIBLIOPHILES TIBOR FISCHER ON THE FINE ART OF BLATHERING CONVINCINGLY ABOUT UNREAD BOOKS

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From: The Sunday Telegraph London
Date: 20080113
Author:Tibor Fischer

How to Talk About Books

You Haven't Read

BY PIERRE BAYARD

GRANTA, pounds 12, 185 pp

T pounds 11 ( pounds 1.25 p&p) 0870 428 4115

The temptation is almost irresistible. Faced with a work entitled How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read, a reviewer has to battle against the impulse to do just that, as for once, skipping the reading would be wholly justified, indeed fitting, since the patron saint of the project is Oscar Wilde, who quipped:

'I never read a book I review; it prejudices you so.'

There were certain things I would have bet on finding in its pages. The desire to talk about books ...

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