This could be from any age really. I remember reading lots of books like Harry Potter as a 4th grader to seem smart to the teachers looking at me but I didn’t understand any of it. When the big YA dystopian boom was happening, I read tons of terrible YA dystopias to seem cool but many of them frustrated me.
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None. Ever. I read (both then and now) for fun. I’m 51 and will read a book/series for YA if it is interesting/fun for me.
Oh wow that’s super cool! I’ve never really been into YA but I have so much respect for those authors. John Green especially.
Unabridged classics. English is my 2nd language and we studied classic lit in school but they were abridged version. So between 12-16, I would get my hands on the unabridged books and other “classics” just so people go wow.
Most of them were boring or way over my understanding of the world. I read Handmaid’s Tale at 15yo(2002) and I had no idea what the hell was going on but hey I get to tell people I read Margaret Atwood eventhough NO ONE ASKED 🤣 I read it again at 30yo with more appreciation.
Unabridged classics. English is my 2nd language and we studied classic lit in school but they were abridged version. So between 12-16, I would get my hands on the unabridged books and other “classics” just so people go wow.
Most of them were boring or way over my understanding of the world. I read Handmaid’s Tale at 15yo(2002) and I had no idea what the hell was going on but hey I get to tell people I read Margaret Atwood eventhough NO ONE ASKED 🤣 I read it again at 30yo with more appreciation.
Piers Anthony novels in 6th grade. They are written for adults.
Piers Anthony novels in 6th grade. They are written for adults.
Not to seem smart, but to try and fit in with my friends: I attempted a lot of Vonnegut that I didn’t get or enjoy because my friends liked him a lot. And he’s great, just not my style. I tried to read a lot of Heinlein because my best friend was super into old sci fi - I was only able to finish Stranger in a Strange Land, but only because I powered through the last quarter of the book. I couldn’t finish the Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, and others I don’t remember the titles of. We were also into David Bowie at the time, and he was in a movie adaptation of The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis (who also authored The Queen’s Gambit). So I bought a copy of that (it might have been out of print at the time; I found it on ebay or something), and it wasn’t my style, and I didn’t really enjoy it, but I read it.
Actually my style IS all of the books people complain that people read just to look smart - I legitimately enjoy those and actually get accused of being pretentious or, worse, of being insecure about my intelligence. It’s not true, I just like realism, even (especially?) when it occasionally borders on the mundane.
When I was in high school I forced myself to read nothing but classics. I enjoyed them but I definitely did not “get” them. I thought If I read anything recent or YA I would’ve been seen as “lesser” and ultimately missed out on a lot of fun stories that I can’t enjoy to their fullest now cuz I’m older. It did leave a lot of worlds for me to discover when I got back into reading years later though, so I can’t complain too much.
I enjoy rereading a lot of the classics I read when I was younger because my interpretations are soooo unbelievably different! When I first read Wuthering Heights I though Heathcliff was the most romantic character ever written, now its like holy shit what is wrong with these people
Both of those are appropriate responses to Wuthering Heights.
When I was in high school I forced myself to read nothing but classics. I enjoyed them but I definitely did not “get” them. I thought If I read anything recent or YA I would’ve been seen as “lesser” and ultimately missed out on a lot of fun stories that I can’t enjoy to their fullest now cuz I’m older. It did leave a lot of worlds for me to discover when I got back into reading years later though, so I can’t complain too much.
Not to seem smart, but to try and fit in with my friends: I attempted a lot of Vonnegut that I didn’t get or enjoy because my friends liked him a lot. And he’s great, just not my style. I tried to read a lot of Heinlein because my best friend was super into old sci fi - I was only able to finish Stranger in a Strange Land, but only because I powered through the last quarter of the book. I couldn’t finish the Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, and others I don’t remember the titles of. We were also into David Bowie at the time, and he was in a movie adaptation of The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis (who also authored The Queen’s Gambit). So I bought a copy of that (it might have been out of print at the time; I found it on ebay or something), and it wasn’t my style, and I didn’t really enjoy it, but I read it.
Actually my style IS all of the books people complain that people read just to look smart - I legitimately enjoy those and actually get accused of being pretentious or, worse, of being insecure about my intelligence. It’s not true, I just like realism, even (especially?) when it occasionally borders on the mundane.
We gonna just ignore that OP was trying to read books at his reading level to look smart but couldn’t understand them?
We gonna just ignore that OP was trying to read books at his reading level to look smart but couldn’t understand them?
I am stupid, but here’s my answer:
I suppose you can begin to read works from renowned academics, such as economists and anthropologists. It could aid your intellectual appearance in conversation by providing you with a deeper understanding of human behavior, societal dynamics, and psychological principles applied with nuance to complex topics.
This subreddit likes to recommend Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow frequently; this might be a decent starter work, as Kahneman writes in an accessible, yet well written manner. If you’re able to slow your thought process the way he can, it might help with your problem.
I am stupid, but here’s my answer:
I suppose you can begin to read works from renowned academics, such as economists and anthropologists. It could aid your intellectual appearance in conversation by providing you with a deeper understanding of human behavior, societal dynamics, and psychological principles applied with nuance to complex topics.
This subreddit likes to recommend Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow frequently; this might be a decent starter work, as Kahneman writes in an accessible, yet well written manner. If you’re able to slow your thought process the way he can, it might help with your problem.
I’ve never read a book to appear smarter than I was, and I guess I shouldn’t be surprised this is a thing people do.
It’s a good thing people judge books by their cover, eh?
Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Voltaire, Kafka.