Skip to footer

British survey says 62 percent of people lie about having read classic books

The novel people most commonly claim to have read is '1984' by George Orwell, followed by 'War and Peace' by Leo Tolstoy.

'A Passage to India' and the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy are two of the works British residents most often lie about having read, according to a new survey.
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

Have you ever pretended you’d read a well-known book at a dinner party when you’d only seen the movie version or read the summary on the back?

Then you’re not alone.

According to a new survey, 62 percent of Britons say they’ve read classic books they’ve actually never picked up. The results of the study, which were discovered by people billed only as “a leading research team” by the Telegraph, came from talking to 2,000 members of the British public.

Fifty-two percent of those who responded said they’ve displayed books on their shelves that they haven’t actually read, while 42 percent said they’ve only seen a film or TV version of a classic novel but have pretended they read the book, too.

The novel most people lie about having read, according to the Telegraph, is “1984” by George Orwell, with “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy coming in second, and “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens in third. Coming in at fourth place was “Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger, “A Passage to India” by E.M. Forster took fifth, and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy was sixth, followed by “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee at seventh, “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevsky at eighth, “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen at ninth, and “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte at tenth.

According to the Daily Mail, women are more likely to lie about having read a classic novel than men. 

Those who rely on film adaptations of classic books to pretend they perused the page have better shots at getting away with it if they’re fibbing about titles like “Lord of the Rings,” “Pride and Prejudice,” and “Jane Eyre,” which each received high-profile movie adaptations within the last 15 years. Meanwhile, “Great Expectations,” which came in third on the most-lied-about list, has been adapted into a film starring Helena Bonham-Carter, Ralph Fiennes, and Jeremy Irvine which will be released this October in the US.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to British survey says 62 percent of people lie about having read classic books
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2013/0909/British-survey-says-62-percent-of-people-lie-about-having-read-classic-books
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe