Donald Clark has posted a wonderful synopsis of Pierre Bayard’s book on books, How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read.

Reading is forgetting
Books have a special status as ‘almost objects of worship’ and non-readers are stigmatised. Yet reading is often non-reading, as we forget most of what we read almost as quickly as it is read. As we forge forward content is forgotten in the wake of memory that disappears behind. Most reading is forgetting. He’s really on to something here. I habitually underline, mark, comment and summarise on the books I read. Yet it is almost taboo to underline, mark and blasphemous to tear out a page or chapter Life is short and books are long. It’s OK to skim, as many books are padded out to conform to the standard £9.99/250 page norm. In fact, for many, the fact that most of what you read will be forgotten, a summary is adequate.

You can’t judge a book by its lover
So reading is not what you think it is. It’s full of deceit, snobbery and false claims. Bayard exposes many of these taboos. Take a leaf out of his book and see reading, not as being synonymous with books, but in all its wonderful variations in terms of style, length, authors and media. New media and self-publishing are tearing apart the myth that reading is synonymous with books. Reading in many ways has freed itself from the tyranny of books.

If you don’t know Donald’s blog, Plan B, you should check it out. It’s one of the best critiques of the learning field you’ll find. I wouldn’t dream of missing a single post.

I’ll note that Bayard is talking about books that are filled with words. Visual books would fare better, at least in the memory department.