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.

The man responsible for sparking my interest in both reading and writing, Jerome David Salinger, has died. BBC News is reporting that he “died of natural causes, his son said in a statement released by his literary agent.”

I’m sure I’m not alone in wondering what kind of craziness is going to ensue from this. If you remember, Salinger hasn’t published anything since the 60s. But that doesn’t mean he had stopped writing. With the dubious stuff his children have done in the past (“Dream Catcher,” anyone?), I’m sure we’re going to see the floodgates open up and a deluge of previously unpublished work come out. Think of all the money a lot of people stand to make off this sad news.

For now, though, as we wait to see what happens next… check out my previous feature about my own personal Salinger Library including links to places on the internet where you can read his entire (published and uncollected) oeuvre.

Lately I’ve noticed, what feels to me, some sort of backlash against J.D. Salinger. Maybe I’m way off base, but people just don’t seem to like Salinger anymore. He’s no longer fashionable. Maybe he’s just been out of the public mind for so long, people forgot about his continued existence (he’s alive and he’s 90 years old). Not me. While I don’t read Salinger as often as I used to, he’ll always hold a place in my heart as one of the first authors who inspired me to write. I would be lying if I said I didn’t totally try to mimic his dialogue, a facet of his writing that I find to be, frankly, impeccable. He’s not just the Catcher in the Rye. No, Salinger’s got some great writing apart from his most popular (and only) novel. If your experience with Jerome David is limited to Catcher, do yourself a favor and check out his other work. I recommend Franny and Zooey to start (aside: if you’re wondering, I pronounce it with a long “o”, like “zoo” — I do this because Zooey is short for Zachary and being a diminutive nickname, I feel like it would have a goofy tint to it; it could have stemmed from another member of the Glass family, Franny perhaps, being unable to correctly pronounced his name during infancy. Besides, Zoe, the name pronounced with a short “o,” is a female name and Zooey is a man. It is your prerogative to pronounce it anyway you like but the only person who could possibly convince me that it’s pronounced like the female Zoe/Zoey is Salinger himself.)

In addition to my love of Salinger, I also love used books. Thus, I’d like to present to you my Salinger library. I’ve collected these editions over the past decade or so and while none of them are first editions or necessarily rare, they mean a lot to me in their being vintage and being the books that really helped me come of age as a writer. I have, of course, had copies of the typical “white cover with rainbow” editions that have been around since the 90s, but these come and go from my collection as I give or loan them out.  I also have, and have had for over a decade, a collection of Salinger’s 22 uncollected stories. These stories were published early in his career in various magazines and he, for whatever reason, decided they weren’t good enough to collect. I’m sure that when Salinger finally departs this world, we’ll see these stories released to the public along with whatever else he has been working on for the past 50 years. I got my copy of his 22 stories during the early days of eBay (when their privacy rules were a bit more lax). I had won a Pency Prep (Holden Caulfield’s high school) sticker that was meant to look like the clear college/university stickers people put on their cars and was contacted by someone in LA who had taken the time to research the stories at his local library, make copies, and bind them together in an 8 1/2 by 11 book. I cherish this book because it is awesome ephemera. I can see all the strange ads from the magazines of the 40s and 50s, see the drawings and pictures that originally accompanied Salinger’s stories, and I was able to read stories that almost no one I knew had ever read. Now, though, you can read these stories online. Lucky you!

We’ve probably all seen my edition of Catcher in the Rye — it’s pretty iconic. My copy is still very clean, no discoloration or stains or tears; it’s from 1986 by Bantam Books and unfortunately there is no indication on the copyright page as to who designed it. But it’s a beautifully simple design, yellow-orange text on a burgundy background, exactly the same on the front and back covers. Just a great design. It’s very similar in design to my editions of Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour an Introduction. These latter two books, however, use a more Arabic script looking font. Raise High has a dark yellow cover with two white lines across the book about three quarters of the way down. This edition is the 18th printing, 1977, by Bantam Books. My particular copy is a former library edition, still having an ‘S’ taped onto the spine for easy filing and has “Dearborn Dept. of Libraries” stamped on the top edge (I got it in Michigan years ago at a second-hand bookstore). My bookmark in the book, which came stuffed between the pages when I bought the book, is a 1982 Detroit Tigers schedule, sponsored by Stroh’s Beer. The cover is a little beat up and has tape at parts, but it’s still very nice and readable.

My copy of Franny and Zooey was purchased at Carol’s Paperbacks Plus in Waterford, Michigan a long time ago (I know because it bears this bookstore’s stamp). It’s pretty well beat up, has a circle stain on the cover as though somebody at one time rested a coffee cup there. It’s of similar design to Raise High, a comparable font but slightly different, with an off-white cover and two green lines about three quarters the way down. The edition is by Bantam and is dated October 1977. What’s so excellent about this copy of mine is the inscription. This copy was a gift at one time, from “Juanita” to “Juan.” The inscription (pictured below) reads: “Greetings Juan! May love and truth embrace you and carry you thru the impossible. Always, your Cosmic messenger and twin sister. Juanita.” Also, opposite this inscription, is the Zen koan Salinger himself put into Nine Stories. That is: “We know the sound of two hands clapping. But what is the sound of one hand clapping? – A ZEN KOAN.” Thanks for this book, Juanita. It means a lot to me.

My copy of Franny and Zooey also came with its own bookmark; in this case, it is somebody’s shopping list (Juan’s maybe?) outlining that the shopper is looking to “find natural ways to heal the liver” including “food, herbs, vitamins, ginseng, weightloss, hairloss” and “look up Zyrtec.” The list includes other things, some illegible to me, but you’ll just have to use your imagination.

Moving on to Nine Stories, you’ll notice a really interesting cover; listed in differently colored blocks are the names of each of the included stories. Again, the front and back covers are identical. Strangely, Bantam doesn’t tell me the year of this particular edition. It does say that it is the 20th printing and listed are all of the other printings, 1st through 15th with their respective years, while 16th through 20th are absent the year. The 15th printing was in September 1971. Throughout the 60s, the book was printed roughly two to three times per year. If I had to guess, I’d say my particular copy is from 1973 or 1974. No cool bookmark came with my copy, nor any strange inscriptions. But it’s still an awesome edition, although the pages are getting pretty brown and brittle. I bought this book a couple years ago from Amazon Marketplace for a few dollars. However, I should have had this copy a decade ago. You see, when I was younger I saw this exact copy at a garage sale in my home town. I should have just bought it — I mean, why not? — but I thought I already had the edition at home. I did get a pretty cool vintage copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses from the garage sale, so it wasn’t a complete bust. Anyhow, I got home, pawed through my Salinger collection, and saw no vintage copy of Nine Stories. Flash forward a number of years, I had to complete my collection.

And what about my 22 stories? Well, I’ve got pictures of that collection too. A few months back I took up the project of scanning the entire collection so I could distribute it to my friends. I made a PDF out of it but it turned out to be huge — over 200MB. The kind of size is necessary for the collection because I had to scan the pages at a high resolution else the text in certain parts would be unreadable. It’s a pretty nice piece of history, both Salinger’s and my own, so regardless of its availability online I will keep it in my library forever — just like all of these books.

The Times Online’s Luke Leitch has so graciously outlined for us the “10 Literary One-Hit Wonders,” a list that feels as though Leitch quickly patched it together to meet a deadline. In this article we’re presented with a majority of authors who died before or soon after their novel was published, making it impossible for them to give us their second “hit.” A better list could be put together of authors who won a Pulitzer but faded away into obscurity; I would say that’s a better distinction of a “one-hit wonder.” Still, Leitch had a deadline to meet so he spent some time on Google and came up with his list. With my powers of logic and my intense knowledge of literature, I’ll now refute every author on his list as a “one-hit wonder.” Here goes.

To Kill a Mocking Bird (Harper Lee): The kind of immediate and public success that this novel earned could drive a shy person like Harper Lee back into the shadows, which it did. It won the Pulitzer, became a successful film, and was even voted “Best Novel of the Century” in 1999 by the Library Journal. Ms. Lee herself said about the book, “I never expected any sort of success with Mockingbird. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers but, at the same time, I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I’d expected.” How do you follow a novel like To Kill a Mocking Bird? Maybe Harper Lee found what she had to say and said it all with this book, making it unnecessary to write another. Or maybe she never even wrote Mockingbird in the first place; there were rumors that Truman Capote actually wrote it. If Lee had spent the rest of her life writing unsuccessful novels then I could see Mockingbird as a one-hit wonder. She didn’t and it’s not. She wrote a great book and retired with her money.

Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell): Another Pulitzer-winning novel made into a successful film. Mitchell was a journalist who focused on writing book reviews, interviews, and personality sketches. She started Gone With the Wind when she was bedridden with a broken ankle and couldn’t work on her normal journalistic endeavors; the novel was an attempt at diverting herself from her injury. Later, after making a connection with MacMillan editor Harold Latham and enduring a disparaging comment from a friend to the tune of “you’ll never be able to write a book,” Mitchell compiled her manuscript and made it happen. She wrote her book and was happy. Perhaps she would have written another novel, but she died in a car accident in 1949. How does this equate to “one-hit wonder?” It really doesn’t. Novelists may spend a decade working on a new book. Those who are taken from us in an accident, who may have written something great had they not died, shouldn’t be classified as “one-hit wonder” — they never got a chance to be otherwise.

Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte): What can I say about Emily Bronte? She published the first volume of Wuthering Heights in 1847, she died in late 1848 from a cold, her sister Charlotte published the second volume of the novel after Emily’s death, and her sister Anne wrote “Agnes Grey” which is essentially the third volume of the trilogy. Emily never had a chance to become a “one-hit wonder” because of her untimely death. Why label her with this negative moniker? I’m sure had she not died at the age of 30 she would have continued writing and would have probably been quite successful.

Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger): Yes, noted recluse Salinger is a “one-hit wonder.” Really? People who like Salinger read all his published work voraciously. Furthermore, he only published one novel — the rest of his work is short stories and and novellas. It’s also well-known among fans that he indeed continued to write after he ceased publishing and that when his time comes we’ll get to see the work he has been doing over the last 40 years. Salinger, another recluse who didn’t want all the attention, earned himself stalkers with his success and rightfully so retreated from the public eye. “One-hit wonder” implies a person succeeded once and subsequently failed. So far this isn’t true of any of the authors we’ve analyzed. Salinger made a choice to stop publishing, he wasn’t forced out of the game.

The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde): All right. I’m beginning to think that Luke Leitch is just confused. I think he (or his editor) is confused about what the phrase “one-hit wonder” really means. Let’s review the article’s title and tagline: “10 Literary One-Hit Wonders: Luke Leitch looks at those authors for whom one book was enough.” This implies negativity! The tagline implies that one book was enough for either the author or the public and in these cases we’ve seen so far it is patently not the case. Oscar Wilde as “one-hit wonder?” Are you kidding? The man changed humor. Dorian Gray was a successful novel and had Wilde written another novel that would have been successful, too. How do I know? I just do. Also, Dorian Gray was published in 1890 and Wilde was imprisoned in 1895 for his sexuality. When released in 1897, he returned to the public in ill-health and subsequently died in 1900. Yup. What a “one-hit wonder” doofus.

A Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole): How much time should I bother to spend refuting this one? Toole committed suicide before Dunces was even published. So distraught that he couldn’t find someone to publish his masterpiece, he chose to end his life. Once his novel was finally published, spearheaded by his mother, it won the Pulitzer and gained a cult following. Can anyone explain to me how this is classified as a “one-hit wonder?” The book never even came out, Toole never saw its success, and he never even had a chance to have a chance at a second novel. This list is really wearing on me.

The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath): The logic behind his list continues to exponentially fade. Plath hardly even had a chance to continue on. She wrote poetry and taught writing classes. The Bell Jar was published in 1963 and she committed suicide months later. She was a tortured person, emotionally distraught, and didn’t want to continue living. She never saw The Bell Jar become a “hit” or maybe she wouldn’t have killed herself. But then again, maybe she would have. I’m sure her doting fans would not have allowed her hypothetical subsequent writings be anything less than a “hit.” She’s not the literary equivalent of Rick Astley. She died at 30. Not a “one-hit wonder.” Sorry.

Black Beauty (Anna Sewell): She began writing later in life. Black Beauty was published in late 1877 when she was 57, became a huge success, and then she died of an illness six months later. Yes, she is definitely a “one-hit wonder” seeing, again, as she never even had a chance to write a follow-up. Are you beginning to see how absurd this list is?

Dr Zhivago (Boris Pasternak): Pasternak was condemned in the Soviet Union for Dr Zhivago and it wasn’t published in Russia until 1988 (it was published originally in Italy in 1957). Best known in his home country as a poet, he was quite successful with My Sister Life, a collection of poetry, in 1921. Oh, and he died of lung cancer in 1960 — only three years after Dr Zhivago was published. So maybe he would have written a successful follow-up novel if his country’s government hadn’t threatened him and he hadn’t died right after it came out. Good pick, Times Online. Definite “one-hit wonder.”

The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy): Our last item on the list is really damn absurd. Roy is still alive and still young for a writer at 47. The God of Small Things, a semi-autobiographical novel which was, I’m assuming, extremely difficult to write due to its political and personal nature and it was published in 1997. After the novel’s success, Roy turned to journalistic non-fiction and advocacy writing and only in 2007 announced she was working on a second fiction novel. Luke Leitch has condemned her to “one-hit wonder” before she even has a chance to finish and publish her second novel. How does that make sense?

I’ve done this analysis to demonstrate how absurd “journalism” is these days. Isn’t The Times supposed to be a reputible news source? Shouldn’t their entertainment/books section at least have a little substance? I think Luke Leitch or his editor came up with the idea of doing some half-baked literary top 10 list and this drivel is what he vomited out. Not a single author listed should be classified as a “one-hit wonder;” most of them died before they could take a crack at a second novel or they made a conscious decision not to publish anything else; not a one of them failed. In Arundhati Roy’s case, she hasn’t even been given the opportunity to write her second novel before she’s labeled “one-hit wonder.” Really, this is just awful writing. Awful journalism. They should be ashamed of it.