There’s a special place in literary culture for books people pretend to read. They haunt university reading lists, dinner party conversations and dating app bios. We buy them, shelve them with pride, maybe even dog-ear page one. But read them cover to cover? That’s another matter.
Here are ten books you’ve probably claimed to read – or at least vaguely recognised – even if they’re still gathering dust beside your bed.
1. Ulysses by James Joyce
Critically acclaimed. Formally revolutionary. Nearly impossible to read without a guidebook, a PhD and a strong coffee. Most readers tap out by the second ‘Yes’.
2. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Sprawling, brilliant… and 1200 pages long. People love to say they’ve read it – but let’s be honest, they probably just watched the BBC adaptation.
3. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
A feminist classic that launched a thousand essays. While many have read about it, fewer have made it through the full, theory-heavy text.
4. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
A doorstopper with footnotes that have footnotes. Owning it is a statement. Finishing it is an act of literary endurance.
5. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
Frequently gifted, rarely completed. The first chapter is accessible. The rest? Best left to actual physicists.
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6. The Odyssey by Homer
You probably read a modern retelling (hello, Circe) and then nodded knowingly when someone mentioned epic poetry. Totally fair.
7. Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Pynchon’s magnum opus is famously labyrinthine – a novel so cryptic that entire online communities are dedicated to decoding it.
8. The Bible (cover to cover)
Not just a sacred text but the original unread bestseller. Many have dipped in – few have tackled Leviticus and Lamentations for fun.
9. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
Madeleines, memory and a sentence that runs for four pages. Most readers sample Swann’s Way and call it a day.
10. The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Quotable and oddly popular on LinkedIn, but how many people quoting it have read past ‘know your enemy’?
