And what’s the fun of learning someone hasn’t read something if you don’t know who they are? It’s particularly bad to learn (as I did thanks to Janet Malcolm in a recent New Yorker) that several of Gertrude Stein’s biographers didn’t make it all the way through Making of Americans. But if I told you I’d never read it, who cares?

What about children’s books we’re supposed to read? There are kids out there who were denied Roald Dahl the same way friends of mine were restricted to PBS until age 13. Confessing you haven’t read Danny, Champion of the World sounds silly, which makes this whole confession process seem like a pretentious exercise. There’s so many things I want to read and “should” read. But I’m sure we’ve all had the experience of buying a “classic” and having it sit on the shelf as we go out and buy and read books on a theme that’s recently caught our interest. Read what you like, and what compels you.

Someday, for example, I will feel compelled to read The Odyssey. I could force my way through starting tomorrow, but why should I? It will be enjoyable when I’m ready for it.