OMG... this thread is baaaackkk! Anyway...

"No one but me knows he fakes being well-read by thumbing through the first and last chapters of any book he hears about and obsessively devouring reviews in lieu of the real thing. He does this not because he’s incurious, but because there’s a bigger social reward for being able to talk about books than for actually reading them."

My kid did this a lot, but it is because she is a Quiz Bowl literature specialist. Main thing she needed to know was character names, location of book, and a bit about the plot. smile Not that she didn't go on and read many of them, she did, but she also just checked out enough to learn those salient details on quite a few.