6/4/10

10 Books That Make You Look Smart

Grazing on tidbits of information throughout Internet at the local coffee shop doesn't make you look smart or cool unless you have an iPad. Yet, whipping out a good paper back can change all of that. Although books aren't as widely read as they used to be, just like you probably haven't listened to a CD in about a year, they are still symbols of status.

Novels have taken a strange turn from sources of reference, information and creative writing to public displays of douchebaggery. In other words, the book you read tells as much about you now as what kind of clothes you wear. If you want to look smart and cool so hot little college-aged hipster chicks will want to know about your overly insightful, culturally stimulating lifestyle you better get with the program, kid. I'm not saying that you have to read any of these books. Just hold them up and furrow your brows -- you'll do fine.

1) Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger

For most people, the quintessential J.D. Salinger default for looking smart has been the tried and true "Catcher in The Rye", but that's out of style. Sure, if you want to look smart at 15 years old in your local high school whip that out whilst simultaneously watching Donnie Darko. However, those pesky 20 - 30 somethings won't give a hoot in hell and will probably make fun of you. What are you, a phony? How cliche.

Nine Stories is a much better read. Not only was J.D. Salinger more interesting as a short story writer, the book is also small and compact so you can easily carry it around with you and hold it up high on the subway or coffee shop like a male peacock displaying its feathers as a mating ritual. My personal favorites in this book are "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "Teddy".

2) The Stranger by Albert Camus

Albert Camus books -- in this case "The Stranger" -- are definitely hipster favorites, but still remain obscure enough to give you the illusion of uniqueness. The common characteristics of most books that make you look smart to pseudo-educated culture snobs that are too young to really know anything at all is that they have to be tragic, depressing and not too long. Otherwise it would be boring. So, for the angst-filled ADD asshole in all of us, this book definitely delivers.

This is the story of an ordinary sap doing the best he can to scratch by in the Algerian sun after recently attending the funeral of his Mother. Due to a string of ridiculous chance encounters, he finds himself in the midst of a murder trial. The book plays host to a dry writing style in a short package and you can totally just regurgitate the author's words whenever asked about the book by grimacing slightly, taking a sip of coffee and saying, "it's about the nakedness of man faced with the absurd". OMG! You are so effing interesting!

3) The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

This book won't only make you look smart while reading it, it will also turn you into an amature philosopher within a matter of pages. You will be able walk around at parties talking about how finding our Personal Legend is our only purpose in life and that we should all stop opening doughnut stands instead of making our trek to Mecca through the desert. Or, you know, something like that. It doesn't matter what you say, as long as you use the terminology and sayings in this book. You will sound like a drunken god.

4) The Art of War by Sun Tzu

Don't read "The Art of War" because you are looking to enter into a casual militia battle soon, read it because that's what smart bastards do. No matter who you are, if you memorize two or three quotes from this book, you can spew them out in nearly any situation no matter how unapplicable and still sound important. Don't just say the quotes though, you have to start off with, "In 'The Art of War' by Sun Tzu, he wrote...". Skipping this vital step could cause you to fail in your conversational endeavors. After all, as it says in "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu, "Opportunities multiply as they are seized". Nailed it!

5) The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Ah, there is nothing like a nice, depressing Steinbeck novel about a wholesome, impoverished middle American farming family unable to get a leg up in this damned economy! You will be able to find plenty of meaning in that. You actually don't have to read the book though. It's basically the same thing as that old computer game "Oregon Trail" except they're heading Californee way for a better life. Substitute the wagons for dilapidated Ford trucks and the trail for Highway 66 and you're good. Basically, everyone in your family ends up dying from something no matter how many animals you shoot, or in this case, no matter how much fruit you pick and how many times you fail to organize a Union.

6) The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway

Reading any Hemmingway novel will make you look smart, but this one is just more compact. Of course, the key to looking smart when reading this book is to not actually talk about the book, but more about Hemmingway himself. You'll have tons of fun discussing the finer points of this drunken suicidal author that spent his entire life trying to look tough in order to overcompensate for his apparent homosexuality. Or, you could just talk about his six toed cats. It doesn't matter. It's Hemmingway you little smarty pants. Everyone will think you're the bee's knees.

7) Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck

This Steinbeck novel, along with Grapes of Wrath, is a classic coffee shop book to read when trying to look important. In this book, Steinbeck paints a beautiful literary portrait of a tall skinny guy and a short retarded fat guy that kills a bunch of furry animals and then some dude's wife. His tall skinny friend shoots him in the back of the head because his fat friend is such an inconvenient retard and everyone lives happily ever after. The end. It's like a really smart version of Abbott and Costello.

8) The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Just like "The Alchemist" and "The Art of War",  "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran is a tiny little book that will cover everyone in your golden saliva any time you quote it. When a super smart prophet must leave a village he decides to take a much needed Q&A from the audience in which he answers questions on just about everything -- love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, houses, clothes, laws, pain, time and more -- then he jumps on a ship to whore island somewhere. Simply memorizing a few loose quotes from any one of these sections will make you sound smart. Check it out:

HOT HIPSTER CHICK: "It's my friend's birthday tomorrow and I don't know what to get her and I don't have enough money -- epic fail!"

YOU: "As Kahlil Gibran wrote in 'The Prophet', 'You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give".

At this point it's necessary to look up at the sky and scratch your chin.

HOT HIPSTER CHICK: "You're so smart and philosophical, let's have hot sex!"

9) Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss

Eats, Shoots & Leaves is an incredibly annoying book about the poor state of punctuation in today's world. Just like any British author, she managed to take an incredibly simple concept and write incessently on it in a horrifyingly annoying chatty tone until the reader isn't even sure as to what the book is about anymore -- something about pandas. Regardless, reading something about punctuation from a British chick makes you look hella cultured.

10) Freakonomics by Stephen Levitt & Stephen Dubner

This is a book you actually have to read in order to look smart, but you'll vehemently enjoy the shock value it brings along with the perks of sounding smart because it's about economic trends. Talk about why crack dealers still live with their parents and what sumo wrestlers and real estate agents have in common.

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William Mac is a delightfully eccentric pub crawler residing in America's beloved gold-capped southern jewel sitting on dubs more commonly referred to as Savannah, Georgia. When he's not picking up bikini-clad babes on the beach, William enjoys writing, watching horribly directed B Horror movies and reading sophisticated smelling old leather-bound books.

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