《如何談論一本你沒有讀過的書》是法國的文學教授與心理分析學者Pierre Bayard近作。這本書的原版法語版出版時就超級熱門，雖然書中介紹的技巧實在算不上新鮮：像是，翻看書衣上的內容簡介、作者介紹和媒體評語與目錄就可以大致知道一本書的內容，並且可以帶過簡單內容與巧妙轉換話題的方式來談論該書。這技巧其實適用在知識爆炸的今天，誰說每一本書一定要從頭讀到尾？ The runaway French bestseller hailed by the New York Times as “a survivor’s guide to life in the chattering classes.”
If civilized people are expected to have read all important works of literature, and thousands more books are published every year, what are we supposed to do in those awkward social situations in which we’re forced to talk about books we haven’t read? In this delightfully witty, provocative book, a huge hit in France that has drawn attention from critics around the world, literature professor and psychoanalyst Pierre Bayard argues that it’s actually more important to know a book’s role in our collective library than its details. Using examples from such writers as Graham Greene, Oscar Wilde, Montaigne, and Umberto Eco, and even the movie Groundhog Day, he describes the many varieties of “non-reading” and the horribly sticky social situations that might confront us, and then offers his advice on what to do. Practical, funny, and thought-provoking, How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read is in the end a love letter to books, offering a whole new perspective on how we read and absorb them. It’s the book that readers everywhere will be talking about—and despite themselves, reading—this holiday season.
Pierre Bayard is a professor of French literature at the University of Paris VIII and a psychoanalyst. He is the author of Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?and of many other books. Jeffrey Mehlman is a professor of French at Boston University and the author of a number of books, including Emigre New York. He has translated works by Derrida, Lacan, Blanchot, and other authors.
