Linked list: Liar, liar!

This has been on the media circuit recently - filed under "fluff-pieces" - but it is interesting nevertheless. A survey taken in the U.K. for World Book Day 2009* found that 65% of those surveyed have lied about reading a book they haven't. They also reported the 10 most popular books that people lie about reading - since the percentages add to well over 100% I am assuming some people lie about more than one title or they are using the metric system to report the findings.

1. 1984 by George Orwell (42%)
2. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (31%)
3. Ulysses by James Joyce (25%)
4. The Bible (24%)
5. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (16%)
6. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (15%)
7. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (14%)
8. In Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust (9%)
9. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama (6%)
10. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (6%)

Also of note from the survey:
• 65% of people have lied about reading a book they haven’t, with 1984 being the most popular book to pretend to have read
• 41% of respondents confess to having turned to the last page to find out what happens before finishing a book
• 96% of people admit to staying up late to finish a book

*World Book Day: You missed it already, it was March 5, 2009, but gear up for 2010 when it is scheduled for March 4th. Oddly enough, these dates are only listed by worldbookday.com for the U.K. and Ireland...so not sure on the whole 'world' part of World Book Day. But they are forgiven since they publish interesting surveys.