Groskop explains that she's dissatisfied with her kids' current bedtime-story fare, and wants something that will teach them feminist gender roles. She writes,

We often read Captain Pugwash and Asterix – but there are no girls in those stories. I was happy with Babar until Celeste became pregnant with triplets and never came out of the nursery again. In Peepo the mother is always ironing. Of course, there are some successes for both boys and girls. Ludwig Bemelmans' Madeline is a wonderful tale of convent girl derring-do, with lots of boy characters, too. Julia Donaldson's books (The Gruffalo, The Smartest Giant in Town) are great fun, but not exactly politically inspiring. I wanted to find something feminist, subversive. The Female Eunuch for five-year-olds.

But while teaching little kids about gender equality is a worthwhile goal, some of the books Groskop tries don't sound very fun. Here's her precis of Girls Are Not Chicks, by Jacinta Bunnell and Julie Novak:

Some of the pictures and captions in this colouring book are funny. A woman riding a tractor: "Who says girls don't like to play in the dirt?" Two ballerinas dancing: "No one wants to fight the patriarchy alone. Make friends." But I'm not sure whether the messages are really for the amusement of children, or adults. One caption reads: "When she stopped chasing the dangling carrot of conventional femininity, she was finally able to savour being a woman." Try explaining that to a three-year-old.

Little kids aren't really known for their love of abstract concepts. What they are known for: resisting well-intentioned parental indoctrination of all kinds. Groskop's son had this to say about Pippi Longstocking, one of his mother's more inspired choices:

It was rubbish. It's stupid. I like Mr Nilsson [Pippi's pet monkey] and the father who was washed overboard and the mother who is up in heaven. Actually, no, it's not rubbish. It's really funny.

And on The Pirate Girl, by Cornelia Funke:

It's the best story in the whole world. Write this: I really like boats.

The problem with using fiction to teach political ideas to kids is that where you see feminism, they may see boats. And books that are specifically designed to teach kids something are often kind of lame. A better approach might be to offer kids exciting books with cool heroines, and let them learn from these that girls can be awesome. Groskop was on the right track with Pippi and Madeline. Other good ideas:

— Beverly Cleary's Ramona Quimby books
— Matilda, by Roald Dahl (also suggested to Groskop by feminist author Natasha Walter)
— David Adler's Cam Jansen mysteries
— Alice in Wonderland
— Anne of Green Gables
— Harriet the Spy
— Kay Thompson's Eloise books
— for slightly older readers, A Wrinkle in Time (although I was sad, in later L'Engle books, when Meg decided not to pursue a career because she felt she couldn't compete with her mom)

Raise kids on a diet of the above, and they'll be reading The Female Eunuch in no time. Or, you know, not. But at least you won't have to read aloud the phrase "the dangling carrot of conventional femininity," which is probably a reward in itself.

Image via Mulatto Diaries.

Feminist Books For Five-Year-Olds [Guardian]

PW reviews director Louisa Ermelino wrote that the publication "ignored gender and genre and who had the buzz" when composing its list, and that "it disturbed us when we were done that our list was all male." But Cate Marvin, founder of Women in Letters and Literary Arts (and also a pretty great poet) says,

The absence made me nearly speechless. [...] It continues to surprise me that literary editors are so comfortable with their bias toward male writing, despite the great and obvious contributions that women authors make to our contemporary literary culture.

Salon's Laura Miller sees both sides of the issue. She points out that "what's at issue isn't sales or even access to readers," and it's worth remembering that women buy more books than men these days, and that many of the most commercially successful writers in English are women. But "prestige and critical recognition" still matter, and Miller acknowledges that Publishers' Weekly may be unknowingly buying into prejudices about what deserves to be prestigious. Ermelino seemed to brush off the concerns of Marvin and others by saying the PW list wasn't "the most politically correct," but Miller writes,

[R]eal, long-standing cultural biases [...] live in the heart of every critic to one degree or another, and we'd be shirking our duty if we didn't try to account for them. Writing off such qualms as mere "political correctness" is, in its own way, just as dishonest as exaggerating your admiration for a book simply because its author is female, or dark-skinned, or from a far-off nation. I don't doubt that P.W.'s editors are entirely sincere when they say their list reflects their unvarnished preferences. Still, the fact that those preferences can't encompass one woman author among 10 books (fiction or nonfiction) picked from the 50,000-plus titles they claim to have sifted through suggests that their horizons might need a bit of deliberate widening.

This is a smart point. When a list like this one draws criticism — and they have in the past — the compilers usually defend it with the argument that "this is just what we like." But what we like is subject to deeply held and unconscious biases, and when we think we're being objective, we are often praising what we're most comfortable with, or what we think is most deserving of praise based on whatever stereotypes we grew up with. Miller gets this, but she also understands how difficult it is to make a list that's both wide-ranging and true to a critic's particular tastes:

If you insist on a list that's ideally representative of gender, race, class, nationality (i.e., including at least one translation), publisher size (small as well as large), fame, length (short story collections as well as novels), region, genre and so on, you can easily wind up with, say, a list of nine books you kinda like and maybe one you truly love. That's a tepid dish to serve up to readers, and not likely to inspire much enthusiasm, either.

I'm not completely comfortable with the idea that jettisoning your preconceived notions lead to "tepid" criticism, just as I don't like the argument that approaching literature from a multicultural perspective leads to the canonization of bad literature. I think that the "deliberate widening of horizons" that Miller talks about might actually lead critics to love books they might not even have picked up otherwise, and to examine the ways in which their privilege influences their taste. But I also think that compiling, by committee, a list of the ten best books in any year is a great way to piss people off, and not a particularly great way to inform them.

I've been reviewing books for a long time, and I'm a big fan of the book review as a literary form in itself and a way of introducing readers to new and exciting work. I know that, when I review a book, I bring my own prejudices to it — I can and should try to fight against them, but I'll never completely eliminate them all. The thing is, my reviews run under my byline, and are clearly my opinion and mine alone. I'm also just making judgments about an individual book, not about what constitutes the cream of the crop of an entire year's literature. Getting a bunch of people together to pick a "best-of" list, no matter how open-minded those people are, screws up the process of criticism because it obscures it from view. We don't know who fought for what, who insisted on what inclusion or exclusion, and what those people's reasons and biases were. All we see is a collective entity that calls itself an authority and delivers a verdict not just on one book, but on all the books of an entire year (or, sometimes, decade or century). Even if we got the names of everybody on the PW panel (the entire staff? a select group?), it would be pretty hard to tease out all the different influences that lead to an all-male winner's circle.

So while I think the WILLA Wiki of great 2009 books by women is a good response to PW's dude-fest, I also know that every list excludes somebody. And I'd rather go on judging every book on its own merits than compare it to a whole bunch of other books. But of course, that's just the opinion of Anna North, a young-ish white woman from Los Angeles who's tired because it's Friday and skeptical because it's November and a little embarrassed because she hasn't read any of the books on the PW list — and who, like all critics, could easily be wrong.

No. 1 Omission From Top 10 Book List: Women [NYT ArtsBeat Blog]
A 10-Best Books List Without Women? [Salon]
Best Books Of 2009 [Publishers Weekly]
The WILLA List Wiki [Official Site]

I actually talk to myself because I have to — I had ruined my wrists with typing by the age of 21, and ever since then I've used voice-recognition for almost all my writing. That's why every now and then a weird homonym shows up in one of my posts, and why I had to warn my roommates that although I might be mumbling about abortion at eight in the morning, they shouldn't call the cops. Despite the warning, I think they still think I'm crazy.

But maybe they shouldn't. According to psychologist Randy Engle, interviewed in today's Times, most people actually talk to themselves. In the absence of mental illness, we usually do it in order to remember something, or to understand complicated text. Engle says,

[W]hen we are reading something that is quite complex, it helps to verbalize it aloud, because hearing it, and hearing the language, gives us another cue for remembering those exact words. Listening to our internal auditory memory has been found to be quite helpful to understand a particularly complex sentence.

Although I've become an accomplished self-talker, I almost never do this. Maybe it's because I hear a voice in my head while reading anyway, so I don't need to speak aloud. A quick googling reveals that this is relatively common, and that some readers even hear other people's voices. Still, plenty of people look at me funny when I say I have a voice in my head that reads to me. Just anecdotally, I've noticed that scientists and engineers are less likely to be aware of a head-voice, even if they read a lot. So maybe it's a right-brain thing?

I also hear a voice in my head when I write, which made the transition from typing for voice recognition pretty easy (except that the software kind of sucks — no matter how hard I try, I can never teach it any curse words, or the name Barack Obama). This seems even less common than the reading head-voice. Other writers I've talked to don't hear a voice, and one says he actually associates composition with the physical act of typing.

Actually, I think my most insane form of self-talk is actually the most common. Engle doesn't mention it, but I'm pretty sure everybody yells "shit!" or some comparable exclamation when they stub their toe or dropped a just-washed white shirt directly onto a dirty boot-print on the floor. But for some reason, I've taken to shouting out "fuck you!" in these situations. Who am I cursing? Myself? The universe? Some demon sent to cause me annoying accidents? Whoever it is, this curse-ee has received a lot of undeserved blame over the course of my clumsy life. Maybe I should start yelling out "sorry."

Thinking Out Loud [NYT]

The objective is to engage students in workshop-like discussions by having the class choose a book to read, as opposed to a teacher assigning one to them. Supporters of the workshop format say that the open environment is more conducive to discussions, as students are more open to talking about books they choose on their own. Critics, however, claim that the students are missing out on more challenging materials, and that allowing them to essentially design their own curriculum allows them to breeze through the reading discussions without being challenged by more difficult texts. The trick, educators tell the Times, is to find a balance between the two.

"If what we're trying to get to is, everybody has read ‘Ethan Frome' and Henry James and Shakespeare, then the challenge for the teacher is how do you make that stuff accessible and interesting enough that kids will stick with it," Harvard Professor Catherine E. Snow tells the Times, "But if the goal is, how do you make kids lifelong readers, then it seems to me that there's a lot to be said for the choice approach."

Lorrie McNeill, who is pioneering the choice-based program in her middle school classroom in Georgia, says that allowing her students to choose what they read ensures that they develop a love of reading, instead of viewing books as a chore or a task: "I feel like almost every kid in my classroom is engaged in a novel that they're actually interacting with. Whereas when I do ‘To Kill a Mockingbird," I know that I have some kids that just don't get into it."

The best teachers I had in middle and high school were able to incorporate lighter fare and challenging classics into the curriculum, encouraging us to think critically about everything from nonsense like Louis Sachar's Sideways Stories to serious work like Toni Morrison's Beloved. I admire McNeil's approach, as she seems to understand that once you "assign" a book, you zap the reading pleasure right out of it (I've actually had to go back and read classics from high school simply for enjoyment purposes, as I read them solely to prepare for essay tests and class discussions when I was younger), and that allowing students to choose their own materials allows them to challenge themselves to perhaps take a more critical look at what some might consider "easier" reading. I don't think the classics should be tossed aside for the works of Stephanie Meyer, but I do think McNeil's approach is an interesting way of allowing students to develop of love of reading, classics or no. One hopes that that love of reading will push them toward more challenging fare, once the Twilights and Harry Potters of the world no longer hold their interest.

What say you, commenters? Should students have more of a say? Or are we being too easy on students by allowing them to potentially avoid classic literature? And which books would you choose, if you had the chance to design your own curriculum?

Reading Workshop Approach Lets Students Pick The Books [NYTimes]

Growing up, Reading Rainbow was my favorite TV show — and not just because I was only allowed to watch PBS! Reading Rainbow wasn't comforting like Mister Rogers, or overly school-y like Square 1. Reading Rainbow was exciting. From the first bars of the opening theme, you were on an adventure. LeVar Burton was the best kind of host: as enthusiastic and genuinely interested as a friend, but with the reassuring presence of an adult. And the older kids who got to read the book reviews were something to aspire to: smart, poised, independent. In some ways, a TV show about reading is counterintuitive. But RR understood that the two need not be in conflict; that reading, for a young child, has an element of ownership and private accomplishment that nothing else can provide — and that TV is no substitute. In fact, I think the format — a real-life adventure, like a trip to a farm or the Statue of Liberty, combined with books that explored similar themes — was a really smart way of integrating reading into kids' lives. In later years, the show took on real issues: 9/11, poverty, incarceration — with a directness and lack of condescension that had always characterized the program.

Today marks the show's final episode after 26 years on PBS. Burton, the show's executive producer, has cited differences with the show's new parent company. Others have been less diplomatic. Said NPR,

[Director John] Grant says the funding crunch is partially to blame, but the decision to end Reading Rainbow can also be traced to a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming. The change started with the Department of Education under the Bush administration, he explains, which wanted to see a much heavier focus on the basic tools of reading — like phonics and spelling… Grant says that [the Public Broadcasting Service], [the Corporation for Public Broadcasting] and the Department of Education put significant funding toward programming that would teach kids how to read — but that's not what Reading Rainbow was trying to do. "Reading Rainbow taught kids why to read," Grant says. "You know, the love of reading — [the show] encouraged kids to pick up a book and to read."

That people can't see that the two are inextricably linked is sad, and upsetting. Reading Rainbow's future is uncertain, although in February Burton wrote on his Twitter that "I'm seriously moving forward with an idea for a new version of a Reading Rainbow like show. Webisodes for adults." That would be great, and I have a book report all ready to go, but I hate to think of kids growing up without the protective arc of Reading Rainbow. But, for now: I'll see you next time.

Did Education Dept.'s Shift Help Kill PBS's 'Reading Rainbow'? [Washington Post]
'Reading Rainbow' Reaches Its Final Chapter [NPR]
Old School Reading Rainbow Theme [YouTube]

Pulling An Amelia Bedelia: The act of baking something delicious in order to makeup for a major screw-up at work.
Ex: "I totally bombed my performance review, but then I pulled an Amelia Bedelia and brought in some pumpkin-ginger cookies and now I'm getting a raise!"


Going From Zero To Piggle-Wiggle: Using a psychologically twisted "magical cure" to make your point.
Ex: "My boyfriend refused to recycle, so I went from zero to Piggle-Wiggle and turned him into a giant aluminum can. Just before I threw him in the garbage can, he admitted he was wrong about recycling and promised to change his ways. He won't be throwing cans away anytime soon!"


Kishi Style: A method of keeping one's addiction under wraps by hiding incriminating evidence in secret places.
Ex: "I know I said I threw this Backstreet Boys cd out 10 years ago, but I've really been hiding it, Kishi Style, behind my bookcase."


Could Have Been Renesmee: A helpful phrase used when a friend announces that she is naming her child or pet something fairly ridiculous.
Ex: "Gillian has decided to name her daughter Shampoo, and she's going to spell it Schampooh. I guess it could have been worse. Could have been Renesmee."


Granger Danger: What one finds oneself in when they insist upon correcting their friends and acting like a general know-it-all on a daily basis.
Ex: "I love her to death, but providing me with the alternate pronunciation, word origin, and proper spelling of every word I say is sending her in to serious Granger Danger territory."


Golly-Up: If you write something down about someone you know, and they find out about it, be prepared to "do two things, and you don't like either one of them. 1: You have to apologize. 2: You have to lie. Otherwise you are going to lose a friend."
Ex: "I didn't make that blog post private, so now I'm going to have to Golly-Up and apologize to her."


Remember The Egg Fad: Words of advice to a friend who insists upon following stupid trends, and is on her way to ending up with egg all over her face, Ramona Quimby style.
Ex: "Dude, I am telling you, the no-pants trend isn't worth it. Remember the Egg Fad!"


Feel free to add to this list in the comments!

Alas, cries the New York Times, the Kindle, that sassy new reading thing-a-ma-jig that the kids are into, is destroying the world of "literary snobbism" as we know it. "The practice of judging people by the covers of their books is old and time-honored. And the Kindle, which looks kind of like a giant white calculator, is the technology equivalent of a plain brown wrapper," writes Joanne Kaufman, "If people jettison their book collections or stop buying new volumes, it will grow increasingly hard to form snap opinions about them by wandering casually into their living rooms."

Pretentious college freshman across the nation are no doubt mourning the wave of technology that is making their incredibly obvious attempts to impress others by reading Gravity's Rainbow on the T. How will anyone know what you're reading—or pretending to read—if they can't watch you lift your book up in a transparent attempt to impress them? WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO!? People reading on screens? Electronic books?! Next you'll tell me I'm not supposed to bring my boom box and collection of vinyl records on the subway! How will anyone know how awesome I am if they can't judge me from afar?! HOW?!?

"It's a safe bet that the Kindle is unlikely to attract people who seldom pick up a book or, on the other end of the spectrum, people who prowl antiquarian book fairs for first editions," Kaufman sniffs. Really? So does that mean people who don't enjoy reading newspapers won't check the NYTimes website to read this very article? Or perhaps it means that people who obsessively collect records will just skip the option to listen to music on their iPods? Or maybe, jussssst maybe, the Kindle provides book lovers with an option to carry, store, and read thousands of books without having to deal with lugging a copy (especially a valuable first-edition copy) around everywhere they go. To embrace the technology doesn't make you any less of a reader; if anything, it shows that you're flexible enough to get your reading in anyway you can.

Yes, perhaps a bit of the romanticism is gone, but what Kaufman is missing is the opportunity for mystery and intrigue: if you can't see what that adorable guy on the subway is reading on his Kindle, you can always take a guess, or decide in your brain that yes, he's reading exactly what you'd want him to be reading. It also doesn't take too much effort to find out what people are reading; you can check their online profiles, for one thing, to see their favorites. Or, you know, you can always just ask them.

Is A Book Still A Book On Kindle? [NYTimes]

While there is nothing wrong with enjoying a little Twilight or Harry Potter here and there, Ron Charles argues that this is all college students are reading. Instead of reaching for well-thumbed copies of Sylvia Plath or Allen Ginsberg, our nations undergrads are buying "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" or even worse, Tucker Max's terrifyingly popular "book" "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell".

This latest iteration of the old "kids today!" gripe is mostly based on anecdotal evidence, but Charles does have some numbers to back up his claims. Charles relies on data from the Chronicle of Higher Education about the best selling books on college campuses, which are "mostly about hunky vampires or Barack Obama." He connects this trend to the recent upswing in conservative students:

A new survey of the attitudes of American college students published by the University of California at Los Angeles found that two-thirds of freshmen identify themselves as "middle of the road" or "conservative." Such people aren't likely to stay up late at night arguing about Mary Daly's "Gyn/Ecology" or even Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

According to Charles, the decline of card-carrying liberals has led to a generation of "vampire-loving boneheads" (because being politically moderate and enjoying Stephanie Meyer automatically makes someone an idiot). It seems that even literature students are rejecting Melville in favor of escapist fantasy. Professor Eric Williamson says, "There is nary a student in the classroom — and this goes for English majors, too — who wouldn't pronounce Stephen King a better author than Donald Barthelme or William Vollmann."

Full disclosure: I am currently an undergrad, working toward my BA in American Literature, and I am not entirely unfamiliar with the situation described by Charles. His fears that students are no longer getting their politics from contemporary books may very well may be true. However, like Mike Connery, writer for Future Majority, I'm not sure that this means students are entirely rejecting either great books or progressive politics. Connery says: "I don't know that there is a fiction writer out there right now who speaks to this generation's political ambitions. We're still waiting for our Kerouac." Could it be that there just hasn't been a great novel that speaks to our generation in the way that Hemingway and Kerouac once spoke to theirs? I certainly hope that this is the case, because if it turns out that Tucker Max is the true voice of America's youth, then we might as well give up and wait for the coming apocalypse.

On Campus, Vampires Are Besting The Beats [Washington Post]

Related: Students Pretty Much Expect B's For Breathing, Twilight's Stephanie Meyer Admits Her Writing Sorta Sucks

Jenna Lang of The Guardian writes about this type of judgment, asking, "We all know we shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but what about judging a date by the cover of the book he or she is holding?" Lang finds that men were most impressed by seeing Russian literature, "well-worn" copies of classics, and the works of Orwell, Dickens, and shock of all shocks, Hemingway. Women, on the other hand, seemed most impressed by books on current events and travel writing, but looked down on men who read fiction, deeming it "girly." WTF?

On the flip side of things, both genders were repulsed by stereotypical chick lit, as Lang notes:"'Any of those trashy romance, Sex and the City types', declared one man. 'Anything with 'shopping', 'heels' or 'chocolate' in the title", said another. "It's a turn-off when girls are too materialistic.'" Women agreed: " "If I saw a man reading Bridget Jones's Diary, I'd be rather disturbed. Any of those airport novels, the ones with spies and CIA agents, are a no-no too."

As someone who spends most of her time surrounded by books in the library, I often find myself gravitating toward people's bookshelves, more out of curiosity (and perhaps to pick up some reading suggestions) than anything else. Usually I find everything from serious classics to short stories to yes, the occasional "airport" novel, but all that says to me is that a person is well-read and able to enjoy work from many genres.

So what say you, commenters? Do you judge people by the books on their shelves? Or do you care more about a person's life story than the stories they choose to read?

Reading Between The Lines [Guardian]

Write Alan E. Kazdin and Carlo Rotella in Slate,

As a parent, you feel a special deep panic when you realize that your child—your beautiful, clever, funny child, who regularly surprises you with precocious bons mots, who built an ingenious bow out of tubing and rubber bands that can shoot a chopstick across the living room with remarkable accuracy—is having trouble learning to read. Meanwhile, all the other kids appear to be breezing along, polishing off Harry Potter books while your child stumbles over the difference between "how" and "now."

While they warn against neurosis, the authors then contradict themselves with the dire words,

Reading ability does predict school achievement and success (which is, of course, related to income, health, and other factors), and reading gains ever greater importance beyond school, as more jobs are now based on information and technology. Failure to read places significant limits on how one fares in other parts of life. And a lot of people never do learn to read well.

They go on to identify the factors necessary in learning to read and suggest techniques (starting in infancy, natch) to help your child gain comfort with reading skills; the kinds of simple books and nursery rhymes that aid in development, the importance of reading aloud. Okay. Great. So now your child can read, and everything will be okay. Or will it? Because, just by chance, a piece by Michelle Slatalla in the New York Times deals explicitly with the tragedy of learning to read too well - of being forced by the rigors of education to read a s a skeptical, analytical adult rather than with a child's wonder.

Unfortunately there is only a narrow window of time, after one learns to read but before one gets old enough to read critically, to fully appreciate the sweet sadness of “Mick Harte Was Here” or the orphan’s longing in “Taash and the Jesters” — I read that one eight times the summer I was 10 — or the trapped restlessness of being the teenaged “Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones.” Among my three daughters, whose ages are 19, 17 and 11, I see signs of an inevitable progression toward being skeptical readers.

This is some of the same ground Caitlin Flanagan covered when she discussed the particular magic a fantasy world can hold for a young girl (not shockingly, Slatalla invokes Twilight, too) and certainly there's a particular magic to a child's reading. But is reading as a grown up really that empty?

Now, it's no author's fault that these two pieces should overlap, and it's a bit cheap to use the confluence to diminish the very real truths addressed in both. However, it's undeniable that the contrast it sets up leaves us with a vision of modern childhood as menaced by varying fears: the boundaries of scientific achievement on one hand, the obsession with romaticized childhood on the other - and, over all, the sense that at the end of the day so much of it is a reflection on the parent. Learn at the approved level, test appropriately - and then we'll have the luxury of watching your childhood slip away! Yes, a child who can't read is a worrisome thing for any parent, I imagine, and yes, the rigors of adulthood complicate our relationship with fiction. But 1)being in the slow reading group in first grade is apparently no barrier to making one's living as a professional writer and 2)neurosis can do more to hinder a pleasure in reading than anything else...my brother, who had trouble reading, found the process so fraught that, although perfectly capable of cracking a book, as an adult he listens exclusively to audiobooks. Whether he does so with childlike wonder is an open question...I'll suggest my mom get on a "Modern Love" about it, stat.

Reading Isn't Fundamental [Slate]
I Wish I Could Read Like A Girl [New York Times]

Earlier: What Do Girls Want? Chastity By Twilight

However, men were much more likely to lie about books they've read in order to impress a date, according to the BBC, 46% of men will say they've read Ulysses when they usually read Maxim, while only 33% of women falsely attest to reading Infinite Jest when in reality they move their lips when reading Cosmo. (The NY Times' Rachel Donadio, who delved into the books/dating connection earlier this year in a much-emailed essay, thinks that literary dealbreakers and romance may be a "gender issue": "Brainy women are probably more sensitive to literary deal breakers than are brainy men. (Rare is the guy who’d throw a pretty girl out of bed for revealing her imperfect taste in books.) After all, women read more, especially when it comes to fiction.")

These figures are based on a study by the National Year of Reading, and that study found the biggest liars of all were teenagers (shocking, we know). 74% of all teens have lied about having read things, but those things weren't great works of literature, they were "social networking pages or song lyrics." Honor Wilson-Fletcher, the director of the National Year of Reading project, isn't upset that people are lying rampantly about their reading experiences. "For all the talk of our superficial obsession with beauty, it looks like underneath it all we know that brains contribute to sex appeal too," Fletcher says. Aw.

Men 'Lie About Books They Have Read To Impress On Dates' [Telegraph]
Many Lie Over Books 'To Impress' [BBC]

Earlier: Which Books Send You Running Out Without A Cuddle?

Related: It's Not You, It's Your Books [NY Times]