Wow, this is a hard one. So hard, that the Broke And Bookish girls (who proposed it in the first place) didn't answer it yet. I lied a lot about books in college. Everybody lied about them back then, because classes were one, giant pissing contest. Who had read the most? Who understood Joyce? Who could thrash Faulkner and back his thoughts with the most spectacular wits? Who the fuck even read Phenomenology Of The Mind and Critique Of Pure Reason and applied their principles in a literature paper? One giant pissing contest I tell you. The challenge is not to find ten books I lied about, but the BEST ten lies I have made about those books.
1-James Joyces - Ulysses: I totally got it. The complete one thousand pages of stream-of-consciousness and intimate insight on human soul. Understood every second of it. Stream-of-consciousness should totally be the only way you should be allowed to write a novel....yeah...right.
2-Salman Rushdie - The Satanic Verses: OF COURSE I READ THIS. Only, it was a long time ago...*whistles* And it's completely captivating how Rushdie got a fatwa put on his head for that. Like I know anything about religious extremists. *whistles some more* *walks away with hands in pockets*
3-Assia Djebar - Far From Medina: I was only kidding when I said that each time somebody reads this book, there's a natural catastrophe that happens somewhere. It did not caused hurricane Katrina. I repeat, it did not caused hurricane Katrina.
4-Miguel Cervantes - Don Quixote: This was THE book everybody was supposed to have read in school. Teachers thought it came included in the options, like we were cars or something. I think it's the very first time I admit I have never even opened Don Quixote. Maybe one day I will FEEL like it.
5-Marquis De Sade - 120 Days Of Sodom: "I...must...continue...owe...it...to...myself". Not. I understand the point of Sade, but telling myself that I needed to read through this book was the biggest literary lie I ever told myself. In fact, I should sell my copy of this book.
6-Umberto Eco - Foucault's Pendulum: I'm not too sure why, but I once said it was brilliant. But I didn't read it. I just assumed that since Eco wrote so much academic paper about aesthetics and all, it must have been brilliant. Since then I have discovered that the subject of Umberto Eco's novels is how brilliant Umberto Eco is.
7-Dan Brown - Angels And Demons: "Yeah mom, it was pretty good. Thank you. There was a lot of...action and all. When the camerlingus jumps from the helicopter with the antimatter basket, great literature. It's a great gift, mom". I still feel bad about this one.
8-Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood: It doesn't REALLY cure diseases. And it wasn't really written by God himself and Murakami isn't immortal. It's not the book that cured the black plague in the dark ages. The only thing it will cure is your soul.
9-Stephenie Meyer - The Twilight Saga: Technically, every time I bag on this book, I am lying by omission because I never even opened it. I have watched bits of the first two movie and both times, Ithought I was watching Vampires Suck. So I'm slightly talking out of my ass when I refer to Twilight. But only slightly.
10-J.R.R Tolkien - The Lord Of The Rings: "Of course I have read the three books before I read the movie. A long time before. I have read them in my teenage years, they have greatly influenced the way I think". To my credit. I have read the three books after seeing the first film.