Eavesdropping ~ Professional Exaggerator

It's amazing what you hear wandering around the cafe with even just half an ear open.  Today it was someone who claimed that his most creative role in life was as a professional exaggerator.  Now there's a career choice you've probably never thought of.  The trouble is that from the bits and pieces I overheard I suspect that all of us at sometime or another are at the very least amateur exaggerators because apparently what this involves is simply claiming just that little bit more for ourselves than a close examination of the facts might bear out.  And, if we're honest, how many of us can truthfully say that we've never added just a smidgen of a gloss to our achievements?  How far did you walk last weekend?  Just what was your position in that company you used to work for?  And, so it seems from something else that was floating around in the ether today, how many of those books you boast about having read are you truly familiar with?

Apparently, 40% of us claim to have read a book that in fact we've never so much as opened and the novel that comes at the top of the exaggerating charts is Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.  Given how often this has made it in adaptation form to either the small or the large screen, I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised.  I would imaging most people think they've read it even if they haven't just because it's been pretty hard to avoid over the last three or four decades.  Then there are those cult novels that everyone is talking about and you simply can't be seen to be missing out.  Well, next time you're tempted to bluff your way through what appears to be an informed conversation about the latest blockbuster remember in any group of five there's a good chance two others are bluffing as well.

Perhaps we should have an honesty board in the cafe

 ~ Novels I Have Never Read ~ 

I could start with Wuthering Heights  and Ulysses.  Any other suggestions?