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Pompous Books to Read in Public
Want to increase your literary hipster cred at the local coffeehouse?
Here is a list to get you started.
Conversely, do you suspect a close friend is an insufferable book snob?
Catch them reading the following in public and your suspicions are confirmed!
If you've read most of the books on this list, you may be a book snob... but don't panic! Wear the title with pride, you deserve it.
Here is a list to get you started.
Conversely, do you suspect a close friend is an insufferable book snob?
Catch them reading the following in public and your suspicions are confirmed!
If you've read most of the books on this list, you may be a book snob... but don't panic! Wear the title with pride, you deserve it.
Score
A book’s total score is based on multiple factors, including the number of people who have voted for it and how highly those voters ranked the book.
| 301 |
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Run River
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3.82 avg rating — 4,300 ratings
score: 5,
and
1 person voted
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| 302 |
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Metaphysics
by
4.07 avg rating — 17,808 ratings
score: 4,
and
1 person voted
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| 302 |
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A Book of Common Prayer
by
3.80 avg rating — 6,345 ratings
score: 4,
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1 person voted
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| 304 |
|
Where I Was From
by
3.86 avg rating — 6,287 ratings
score: 3,
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1 person voted
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| 305 |
|
The Collected Dialogues
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4.43 avg rating — 783 ratings
score: 2,
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1 person voted
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| 305 |
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South and West: From a Notebook
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3.69 avg rating — 14,921 ratings
score: 2,
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1 person voted
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| 307 |
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The World According to Joan Didion
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3.67 avg rating — 666 ratings
score: 1,
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1 person voted
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307 books ·
153 voters ·
list created March 15th, 2012
by Holly Lindquist (votes) .
Holly
1716 books
61 friends
61 friends
Karen
1868 books
69 friends
69 friends
Adrianne
1710 books
1 friend
1 friend
Matthew
1285 books
25 friends
25 friends
Read Between The Lines
6180 books
61 friends
61 friends
buppyspek
383 books
13 friends
13 friends
Samuel
1106 books
74 friends
74 friends
Susanna - Censored by GoodReads
3384 books
853 friends
853 friends
More voters…
Comments Showing 1-20 of 20 (20 new)
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message 1:
by
Limey
(new)
Nov 08, 2013 05:40PM
Here's a top tip: get hold of a hardback edition of one of these pompous books, cut out the middle couple of hundred or more pages of it, and then you can just put your usual, normal, real people's, non-hipster, pompless, friendly-neighborhood, genuinely readable, unpretentious, happybrow, fun, top-entertainment books inside it, so that people think you're ultra-hip and highbrow and can actually make sense of that wacko shit.
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Read Ulysses today at the Social Security office (it's just what I happened to be reading!), so where do I pick up my pompous card?
Only two women in this list! A little bit unbalanced...
I count 5 female authors in the top hundred, but that's still a very masculine list.
I'm personally thankful that so few female authors have to resort to being overbearingly pompous in order to write quality literature. If they don't make the list, I think that's a success, not a failure...because face it, this list is obnoxious! Pew! PS: Although.. after some reflection I realize Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia belongs on the list. Very much so.
Perhaps a list for Genuinely Thought-Provoking Books or Deeply Intelligent Reading would have better diversity. I know several female authors that could wipe the floor with the competition in that case.
Um. Why is the "The Road" on this list? Its an easy-to-read page turner that was turned into a blockbuster movie, and by far Cormac McCarthy's most accessible mass audience genre novel...
ah yes, glenn beck, the most pompous of them all. riiiight...
must we be ironic and postmodern about good literature? perhaps you just want to read a good book when you read Ulysses.
Grant wrote: "must we be ironic and postmodern about good literature? perhaps you just want to read a good book when you read Ulysses."Well, we are still in the "postmodern" era, so... yes.
Mark wrote: "Here's a top tip: get hold of a hardback edition of one of these pompous books, cut out the middle couple of hundred or more pages of it, and then you can just put your usual, normal, real people's..."this has to be satire
But 'Ulysses' is flat out brilliant. It's one of a handful of books that make me laugh out loud, and yes several times in coffee shops. "Atlas Shrugged" is brilliant entertainment, but basically a pretentious soap opera! Proust is a magnificent writer!
Mark wrote: "Here's a top tip: get hold of a hardback edition of one of these pompous books, cut out the middle couple of hundred or more pages of it, and then you can just put your usual, normal, real people's..."Mark, well, in the 1st grade I had Agatha Christie books hidden within those silly readers like "See Jane Run." I had no other choice but to hide what I really wanted to read.
I'm glad to see Jacques Barzun on a list of pompous people. My only qualm is that he doesn't deserve to be on a list with writers of real ability and insight.
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