Frankly, I am shocked that “How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read” by a Frenchman Pierre Bayard has become a bestseller generating write-ups in nearly every literate publication from The New York Times to The Economist and The Times Literary Supplement. You can catch a whole slew of reviews, mostly ones gushing about how clever the writer is, in one of my favorite book chats at Book Browse. Some reviewers have even written their review tongue in cheek saying they hadn’t read the book they are discussing. Quite appropriate, I think.

It is not that I think anyone can or even wants to read everything — who has the time or energy? But gosh, whatever happened to listening to others talk and asking good questions. Why does the author think everyone has to be a “know it all.”

R.R. Bowker, a leading publisher of bibliographic information, has estimated that the U.S. title output in 2006 increased by more than 3 percent over the previous year to 291,920 new titles and editions, up from the 282,500 published in 2005. That’s a lot of books to keep up with and they haven’t released their final tabulations for 2007 yet.

I am shocked with Bayard’s book from the British publisher, Bloomsbury. You see, I am naive enough to admit it when a book I haven’t read comes up for discussion — and there are lots of them out there. The last thing I want is to make it seem like I have read something that I didn’t and come out looking foolish or like someone who didn’t understand the book’s message. I do, though, read about current books and am able to talk about the chatter each one has generated without trying to imply that I read something that I did not. Sometimes word of mouth makes me want to go out and get that new book to try — and then there are those classics that I have always meant to get to or to re-read.

This leaves me with a few questions. If you were to pretend that you read something you didn’t, what book would that be? And, are there some books you wish you had read because you want the credit but really you are not interested enough to devote the effort? Have you heard of “How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read” — and what do you think about its basic premise and the attention it has gotten?