We Want Media

Pierre Bayard’s book How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read helps non-readers to do just that. His book is already so popular that it’s already a candidate for translation. Bayard supposedly addresses the funny need to know everything and explores the psyche and guilt or embarrassment of NOT reading in a well-read culture. Who knew reading and non-reading was so traumatic? Not I … nor do I have much sympathy.

If you’re looking to speak intelligibly about a medium or subject you’ve never read, I don’t think Bayard’s book will help much aside from what you’ve already learned in school when you were supposed to have read an assignment, but didn’t.

But Bayard’s argument is interesting. Apparently the culture of reading is full of Prousts, rules, and formality and non-readers are just scarred. That argument doesn’t work for me.