It’s one of the most dreaded scenarios that you can ever encounter.  You’re at some social function, a birthday dinner or a cocktail party, and everyone you meet is, well…smarter than you.  It isn’t like you’re an idiot or anything; you just want to have a conversation about the latest episode of Jersey Shore and all everyone wants to talk about is J.D. Salinger (who just died or something) and keeps mentioning Catcher in the Rye.  And you think baseball is boring, so you never read it and everyone gives you looks of pity and disgust.  Thankfully, with these helpful rules and advice, you’ll never have to suffer through such an experience ever again.  You’ll know how to act well read.

You don’t have to actually read the books, just about them.

Reading books takes time and concentration, and you have neither.  You can look up the plots to classic titles on Wikipedia, flip through the New York Times Book Review to learn about the latest releases, and cruise through bookstores every now and then to read the backs of random books.  This will give you just enough material to work with in conversation; you’ll be able to list main characters and themes along with the settings and main plot points or two.  Oh, and NEVER use the movie version of a book as the source of reference—Hollywood changes everything, including endings.

Be part of the conversation.

People who don’t know what’s being talked about don’t participate in the conversation.  Think about when you were a little kid and your parents talked about politics or world events over dinner—you didn’t add to the discussion because you knew nothing about it.  This is also the riskiest part of pretending to be well read.  You’re in danger of exposing yourself as not knowing what the hell you’re talking about, because…well, you don’t.  Hopefully, if you followed the previously mentioned step, you’ll have enough to work with.  The rest of these rules will help you survive the discussion.

Never admit to not knowing an author.

So, you’ve waded into the conversation and, despite your research, someone mentions a writer you’ve never heard before.  Don’t ask, “Who’s that?”  It does seem a little obvious, but even those that actually read a lot break this rule.  Remain passive when a novelist you’re not familiar with is being praised (Though a nod every now and then along with an affirmation of “Yeah, he’s good,” doesn’t hurt.) And if asked directly whether you’ve read a specific title of his work, respond with “I’ve only read his short fiction.”

Agree with whoever actually read the book and don’t ask questions.

“I pretended to read many books back in college,” my friend Jane admits, “but I definitely don’t remember how I pulled it off other than agreeing with the individuals and laughing when they were saying, ‘and do you remember the crazy part when so and so did this and that?’”  It goes without saying that if someone is recounting what happened in a book you haven’t read, you should just go along with what they’re saying. But there is the temptation to take it too far and expose yourself with just one little logical assumption (that turns out to be false) or too much praise.  Something a book publicist friend (who wishes to remain anonymous, for obvious reasons) found out the hard way. “I told the author I was so glad his book had a happy ending,” she says, “and he replied, ‘The main character gets shoved through a woodcutter.’ Whoops.”  Which brings us to out final rule…

Stick to what you know for sure.

So you’ve done your research, joined the conversation, haven’t admitted to not knowing any writer-y names thrown around, and are agreeing with everything being said—and it’s working.  You may feel like the greatest con artist the world has ever known and cocky enough to try and make something up—DON’T.  It’s a classic mistake; just stick to what you know.   “When talking about books I try to stick to books that are based on real events,” explains my friend Sean.  “Especially events in which I know how they worked out, i.e. the Titanic, civil war, you get the picture.  This way I can talk about the book by talking about what happened.”

Using my system, you’ll be able to navigate any conversation with a bibliophile with the greatest of ease.  Now, some critics may argue that truly being a “well read” person is not about the amount of reading you’ve done, but more about being open to discovering new books and writers.  They’ll even go so far as to say that discussions about books shouldn’t be to “prove” what you’ve read, but rather what you haven’t. They’ll say that you have to rise above your ego and freely admit what you don’t know, so as to discover and share books and authors that can change lives.

But what do those people know? They don’t even know who Snooki is.

Mark your calendars.  If you didn’t know, the nook, Barnes & Noble’s eReader is finally available this week since it sold out immediately after its November unveiling.  According to an announcement by the behemoth bookseller on Monday, its online store would have the nook (purposely spelled with lowercase “n”) for sale and that stock would begin shipping out to its stores, nationwide, throughout the week. Reviews of the nook have ranged from “pretty great” to “long on promises and short on delivery.” Its dual display, a touch screen for navigation and an e-ink monitor for reading have give some to wonder if  it a could be a “Kindle Killer.”

When I asked Doug Gottlieb, Barnes & Noble’s Vice President of Digital Devices, via e-mail what made the nook so different from all the other digital readers on the market (including the Kindle), he claimed that it started with making the technology around the user, not the other way around. “With nook, we’ve created an eBook reader that provides an immersive and intuitive reading experience,” he wrote back, adding:  “Our device puts the focus on the consumer, not the technology.  Using a combination of color and touch, we make eReading simple, even for the tech novice.”  Gottlieb also pointed out that being tied in with the Barnes & Noble brand “gives us an excellent opportunity to expand the market for eReading.”

So is the nook worth all the hype? Well, whether or not you remember, I’m a big Kindle guy.  And after spending some time playing around with the in-store model, there doesn’t seem to be much of difference. It takes a millisecond or two longer than my first gen Kindle to load a page.  The touch screen is pretty sweet and a great way to navigate (a big step up from the Kindle’s clunky keyboard) but takes some time to get used to.  For me the key feature that stuck out was the book’s LendMe program.

“We know our customers love to read, so our approach to design focused on creating an immersive reading experience,” explained Gottlieb, “one that provides the same joys of reading and sharing a physical book.  With LendMe technology, nook lets you lend eBooks to friends free of charge for up to two weeks at a time.  You just choose the book you want to share, then send it to your friend’s nook, compatible eBook readers, or B&N eReader-enabled iPhone and iPod touch, select Motorola and BlackBerry smartphones, Mac or PCs.” Alright, brand loyalties aside… that’s freaking cool!  I’m pretty sure that’s how George Jetson recommended books to Jane, his wife.

When it comes down to it, is the nook better than the Kindle?  It’s arguable.  But with a wireless delivery system and an exhaustive eBook catalogue (as with the Kindle), the nook is definitely competitive. So mark you calendars, because starting this week: the new reader is finally in town.

This month saw the release of Thomas Pynchon’s latest novel, Inherent Vice.  Initial reactions from critics have been a mixture of praise for playfully using the classic detective story template (with a twist in the background landscape of 1970’s California) to create a “blast to read regardless of whether it makes sense” to derisions of being nothing more than “Pynchon Lite” for clocking in just under 400 pages.

But for Pynchonites, like myself, the release of Inherent Vice marked something else—a new addition to Pynchon lore.  To be a Pynchon fan is to be familiar with the mythology surrounding the reclusive author. You trade stories, like baseball cards, with other fans.  “Have you heard that he wrote a bunch of ‘letters-to-the editor’ at some Northern California newspaper as an old Russian woman?” Someone might ask you. To which you say, “Yeah.  Did you know he once jumped out a window in Mexico City to get away from a photographer?”  You also hunt and search for tidbits and stories that add to the mystique of a man, who’s only out matched by J.D. Salinger as a literary recluse (and according to some theorists, the same person).

So when a trailer for the novel was uploaded to Penguin’s YouTube channel on the same day the book hit the shelves—many in the community began to speculate that maybe it was Pynchon himself doing the narration in the voice of Inherent Vice’s main character, Doc Sportello.  It sounded a lot like this infamous Pynchon cameo in an episode of “The Simpsons.”

Then, the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog, which covers arts and entertainment, launched an investigation to determine if in fact the voices match and hired an expert to compare the samples. According to them, their expert confirms that the “‘voices were delivered by the same person,’” which they used to leverage a confirmation from a Penguin spokesperson that the voice on the trailer is indeed Pynchon’s.

Now before you go thinking that you’ve heard  the man who wrote V., Gravity’s Rainbow, and the Crying of Lot 49 speak, I’d like to point out that just the voice from the trailer matches the one we (and “The Simpsons” producers) are told is that of Thomas Pynchon.  It could easily just be an actor—hired both times to step in for the author.  This is, in fact, a man whose editor hired this guy to be “Thomas Pynchon” and accept the National Book Award for Gravity’s Rainbow in 1974.

If this whole thing strikes you as slightly familiar—you’re right.  Back in 2006, a detailed summary of Pynchon’s previous novel, Against the Day, was posted on its Amazon.com page just before the release date, signed (if you can claim such a thing in the digital world) by the author and then quickly taken down.  After many write ups and message board arguments, it was confirmed that Pynchon did indeed write and post the summary.

So, if he didn’t know before the Amazon incident, Pynchon (or at least who ever manages his PR) would most certainly be aware that any online presence would create some sort of publicity.  I have to wonder: could Thomas Pynchon be an Internet marketer?  Could he have orchestrated this entire incident to attract attention for his new book?   Could he be playing us all for rubes?

The truth is that a writer with Pynchon’s public persona of mystery and purposeful coyness arising today is inconceivable and unlikely.  Can you imagine a bestselling literary author in this day and age refusing to make ANY public appearances?  And for the most part, Pynchon’s air of secrecy makes the experience of reading his work a little bit more enjoyable.   It also forces you to question and hypothesize what is real and what isn’t (just like many of his characters ).  And maybe that’s the whole point of Thomas Pynchon.

[Writer's note: I would love to have embedded the videos so you could watch them withouth leaving the site, but apparently wordpress will not let me do that anymore.  If you know how to do that (and yes, I did try dropping the embedded code from YouTube directly into the HTML), please let me know via comments and I will update the post.  Thanks]

Hello, my name’s Dave and I’m an addict.  I’m hooked on reading on how to better myself. It’s a habit that takes many forms; from the quick high of perusing the latest issue of Real Simple (swiped from my girlfriend’s bedside table) to the constant jonesing that keeps me surfing the Internet at work—checking up on sites like LifeHacker, ZenHabits, and 43Folders.  But the main focus of my compulsion is the mainlining of self-improvement books.

My shelf is loaded with titles whose spines profess that within their pages is the knowledge to help me become a more effective person, run a marathon, get organized, write a comic book, manage my time, and get started financially in life.  And if book sales are indicative of anything, it looks like I’m not alone.  It seems that the largest (and busiest) sections in bookstores are filled with guides and manuals instructing readers on how to accomplish goals or take charge of themselves.

Due to my extensive dependence on self-help books over the years on, I’ve picked up a few skills and techniques that had nothing to do with how to improve myself, but rather on how to read the material.  Here are some tips from what I’ve learned:

• Give into that temptation to frantically flip through it.

So, you’ve recognized your problem (or goal) and have set out to find the right book to help you out.  You browsed, asked for recommendations, and spent hours reading the summarizing back cover copy of several different titles, looking for just the right one, until store security tells you to leave (Everyone does this, right? It’s not just me, right?).  And as soon as you walk away from the cashier, your initial urge is to rip into it, frantically flipping the pages and scanning the text, looking for that one simple answer that will be the key to complete salvation.

I say, give in.  Complex problems have complex solutions, so you won’t find that silver bullet solution, but because the self-help industry favors a style abundant with summarizing in bold text and bullet points it will give you a good overall sense of the book before you even read the introduction.

• Read all the way through and don’t do ANYTHING (unless the book tells you to).

Once that initial excitement as died, you now have to sit down and read the damn thing.  One problem with a book meant to inspire and motivate is that a particularly stirring chapter can send you off, half-cocked, to try out the advice.  But unless it’s something that the author tells you to do—don’t do it.  It’s the classic cliché of fatherly wisdom.  You can almost see some sensible 1950’s father, pipe dangling from his mouth, gently admonishing his son, sitting over the crime scene of a failed attempt to build a model airplane, with the aphorism that  “you should always read the directions all the way through first.”  It’s still true today.

• Take notes.

It sounds pretty simple, but sometimes the simplest ideas are the best solutions.  I like to keep a pad of post-it notes on hand when I’m reading—so I can bookmark a page, summarize an important passage, or even copy down an inspiring quote and post it somewhere around my apartment to keep me motivated.

• Figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Despite what most self-help writers may claim about their advice, not everything works for everyone.  So it’s important to keep in mind that a whole program designed to help you change your life might not really work for you.  But that’s not to say that certain aspects or steps can’t be useful on their own. You have to be willing to take apart a whole step-by-step process and gleam the gems of advice that are actually helpful from those that aren’t.   Which brings me to another useful tip:

• Don’t be afraid to mix and match ideas.

One of the great things about reading a plethora of self-improvement titles is that I’ve amassed so many different ideas on how to better myself that I’m able to mix advice from a variety of sources to create my own custom self-help program. In fact, different tips from different books usually end up complementing each in some way.

• Never get rid of a self-improvement book!

I think this is the most important pearl of wisdom I have to impart.  For whatever reason you’re done with a self-help book—whether you finished reading it, didn’t like it, or couldn’t understand it—always keep it.  Sometimes the reader isn’t ready to take the advice or sometimes the strategy doesn’t fit the person’s specific situation at that time, but later on down the road (maybe years later) he or she can pull it off the bookshelf and it will suddenly click.  And even if you fully adopt the principles of a book, it’s always a good idea to reread it every now and then as a refresher.

Early on in the film Adaptation, Nicolas Cage, playing real life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, is having a business lunch with a studio executive, played by Tilda Swinton.  They’re discussing the possibility of a movie based on the Susan Orlean’s non-fiction book, The Orchid Thief.  “I don’t want to ruin it by making it a Hollywood thing,” says Cage, channeling Kaufman, and then frenetically describes a list of movie clichés that (spoiler alert) the dangerously self-aware film devolves into its third act.  The movie is witty, postmodern, meditation not just on creativity, but the need in our culture to turn a good book into a movie.

This year sees an almost epic list of movies adapted from books.  Last week, it was Public Enemies, the Dillinger biopic directed by Michael Mann based on Bryan Burrough’s non-fiction book of the same title.  This week, it’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth in the series of both books and movies (full disclosure: I’m attending a midnight showing tonight…possibly in costume).  And has Hollywood seems to put out more and more movies adapted from books, in between live action remakes of classic 80’s cartoon shows, one is left to ask the question: is the book better than the movie? I sparred two of my friends, Lynsey, a writer who favors books but also loves movies (particularly with Johnny Depp) and Rob, who works in independent theater and is a well-read cinephile, against one another in this endless debate.

“Books are usually better than movies,” said Lynsey, adding later: “I think most often because the book version of a story is generally longer and more detailed.  The characters have more time and room to develop alongside the story.”  She explained that to keep things moving along the plot in such a short amount of time, films cut out character development and subplots, often leaving out that which made the reading experience all the more richer. “Also,” she pointed out, “every person, in the process of reading a book, comes up with very particular ways of picturing characters and events.  A movie can’t possibly make everyone happy.”

“I think that people who are already fans of a book are going to be predisposed to like the book more than the movie,” countered Rob, “because inevitably the movie will have to cut things and die-hard fans will see these as glaring omissions.”  He cited Jurassic Park as good movie based on a good book.  “I wouldn’t say that the book was superior to the movie.  They stand on their own feet.”

But can the movie ever be better than the book?  “I don’t know about BETTER,” Lysney demurred.  “Well, maybe Fight Club.  But then, I can’t really stand reading Chuck Palahniuk because I find his characters just too odious on the page.  The movie, though, was perfectly paced, beautifully shot, and fucking SEXY.  Also perhaps American Psycho, just because it’s such a funny movie and the book is so… Just… Well, you know what I mean.”

“While I like both the film and the novel American Psycho, there are certainly ways in which the film may be better,” said Rob.   “It takes advantage of the book’s humor and satire, and leaves behind much of the more gruesome and controversial bits of the novel.

“I think it’s all about accepting that there’s a huge difference between the two mediums, and then building from there,” he later added.   “And it’s entirely likely that there could be so-so source material, and a film director, screenwriter, or producer finds a way to make that a compelling story to watch on film.”

“Film versions can be good,” admitted Lynsey, before she threw in the caveat of only when “they treat their source material with respect.”

Maybe there’s something to the whole “Hollywood thing.”