A list of books I have implied I finished. No defence offered. · What…

A list of books I have implied I finished. No defence offered.

What interests me is that the lie is never planned: somebody says the title, you make a noise, the noise comes out slightly more affirmative than the truth, and then it is six years later and you are committed. Nobody has ever once followed up. The social cost of admitting it is entirely imaginary and I have gone on paying it anyway.

I have started saying "I got about halfway" and it has cost me nothing at all. Halfway is a normal amount of a book to have read.