It happened to me recently. I was telling someone how much I had reading Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father and how it had changed my views of our President. A friend I was talking to agreed with me that it was, in his words, “a brilliantly written book”. However, he then went on to talk about Mr Obama in a way which suggested he had no idea of his background at all. I sensed that I was talking to a book liar.
最近我遇到了一件事。当我告诉别人我正在读巴拉克·奥巴马的《我父亲的梦想》一书，以及它如何改变了我对我们总统的看法时，与我交谈的一位朋友同意我的看法，用他的话来说，这是一本“非常精彩的书”。然而，他接着谈到了奥巴马时却表明他对总统的背景一无所知。我意识到我在和一个骗子谈话。

And it seems that my friend is not the only one. Approximately two thirds of people have lied about reading a book which they haven’t .In the World Book Day’s “Report on Guilty Secrets”, Dreams From My Father is at number 9. The report lists ten books, and various authors, which people have lied about reading, and as I’m not one to lie too often (I’d hate to be caught out ), I’ll admit here and now that I haven’t read the entire top ten. But I am pleased to say that, unlike 42 percent of peoplt, I have read the book at number one, George Orwell’s 1984. I think it’s really brilliant.
我的朋友似乎不是唯一的一个。大约三分之二的人在谈及他们没有读过的书时会撒谎。在世界图书日的“羞愧秘密的报告”中，《我父亲的梦想》排在第9位。报告列出了十本书，以及各种各样的作者，这些都是人们撒谎说读过的书。我很少撒谎（我不想被揭穿），我在此承认，因为前10名我还没有全部读完。但我很开心，我与42%的人不同，我读过排名第1的书，乔治·奥威尔的《1984》。我觉得它真的很棒。

The World Book Day report also has some other interesting information in it. It says that many people lie about having read jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky (I haven’t read him, but haven’t lied about it either) and Herman Melville.
《世界图书日》报告中还有其他一些有趣的信息。它说，许多人谎称读过简·奥斯汀、查尔斯·狄更斯、费奥多·陀思妥耶夫斯基（我没有读过，但也没有撒谎）和赫尔曼·梅尔维尔。

Asked why they lied, the most common reason was to “impress” someone they were speaking to. This could be tricky if the conversation became more in –depth!
有人问他们为什么撒谎，最常见的原因是为了让他们的谈话对象对其“印象深刻”。如果谈话进一步深入，就可能会很麻烦！

But when asked which authors they actually enjoy, people named J. K. Rowling, John Grisham, Sophie Kinsella (ah, the big sellers, in other words). Forty-two percent of people asked admitted they turned to the back of the book to read the end before finishing the story (I’ll come clean: I do this and am astonished that 58 percent said they had never dome so).
但是当被问到他们真正喜欢哪位作家时，有J. K. 罗琳、约翰·格里沙姆、索菲·金塞拉（换句话说，是畅销书）。42%的被调查者承认他们在读完故事之前会翻到书的后面去看结局（我会坦白：我这么做了，但我很吃惊，竟然有58%的人从来没有这样做过）。