From the category archives:

Sounding Smart (without being smart)

Burns: Poems, by Robert Burns

by Derwood Hunsdale-Talbot on February 26, 2010

Sounding Smart (without being smart)
Whyles the verse o’ Burnsie
Gang aft o’er my head
I doubt na why earth born companion,

{ 0 comments }

Gulliver’s Travels, by Johnathan Swift

by Derwood Hunsdale-Talbot on February 17, 2010

Sounding Smart (without being smart)
The most important factor regarding the travels of Gulliver is to be able to fluently recite the names of all the lands to which he voyages – not just Lilliput. Bobdingnag, Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib, Houyhnhnms, and Japan. You will receive extra-special secret points if, in the same conversation, you mention how [...]

{ 0 comments }

Finnegan’s Wake, by James Joyce

by Derwood Hunsdale-Talbot on September 8, 2009

Sounding Smart (without being smart)
No one has read this book. Joyce himself took seventeen years to “write” it,

{ 1 comment }

Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller

by Derwood Hunsdale-Talbot on August 17, 2009

Sounding Smart (without being smart)
Some nozzle may try to correct you, politely suggesting you may have meant Tropic of Cancer or Tropic of Capricorn. If so, roll your eyes, sigh loudly and state flatly: “I didn’t say Arthur Miller.

{ 1 comment }

Godel, Escher, and Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas R. Hofstadter

Sounding Smart (without being smart)
You shouldn’t even pretend to have read this book.

{ 1 comment }