and, feeling behind on all my other work, and attempting the rewrite again (the pages of the Greeks are scattered on the coffee table in front of me), here is an appropriate article about talking about books you haven’t really read, by Pierre Bayard – his book on the subject, “How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read,” came out Jan. 10th and is getting really popular.

“Non-reading goes far beyond the act of leaving a book unopened. To varying degrees, books we’ve skimmed, books we’ve heard about and books we have forgotten also fall into the rich category that is non-reading. Life, in its cruelty, presents us with a plethora of situations in which we might find ourselves talking about books we haven’t read.

To get to the heart of things, I believe we must significantly modify how we talk about books, even the specific words we use to describe them. Our relation to books is not the continuous and homogeneous process that certain critics would have us imagine, nor the site of some transparent self-knowledge. Our relation to books is a shadowy space haunted by the ghosts of memory, and the real value of books lies in their ability to conjure these spectres. “

And another article, on why authors want to be anonymous, by John Mullen, whose book on THAT subject, “Anoymity,” comes out on Jan. 17.

“Jonathan Swift arranged for a sample part of Gulliver’s Travels, transcribed in another man’s handwriting, to be dropped in secret by an intermediary at the house of publisher Benjamin Motte. It was accompanied by a letter from one “Richard Sympson”, supposedly Lemuel Gulliver’s cousin, offering the whole of the Travels for publication in return for £200. Motte was told that, within three days, he should either return the “Papers” or give the money “to the Hand from whence you receive this, who will come in the same manner exactly at 9 a clock [sic] at night on Thursday”. Motte bravely accepted the mysterious offer and a few nights later he duly got the rest of the book.”

Both of these are testing my resolve to not acquire more books until I have acquired a place to live. Now, if someone would just write an book on how to write plays you haven’t written.

All of this is via ArtsJournal and the Guardian.