Books You Haven't Read

I must admit that I am probably the only reformed blogger who has not read Tim Keller's The Reason for God. Someone at church a few weeks ago asked me if I had read it. I said, unfortunately, no. Why? Well, its not because I am not interested. Anything Tim does is interesting to me. Tim is one of the preachers I have on my mp3 player, which I listen to as I do yard work. In fact, I have his messages, which are themed in the book. No, the main reason I have not read Tim's book is because I feel like I have. With so much about the book on the internet and so much of the book being discussed and reviewed; and video and audio messages about the book, I feel I have already read it. It may actually be the first virtual book in our collective reformed internet community mind.

For more on this idea, read this review from Comment Magazine of How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read. I am not advocating an end to reading books - no way. But I find it interesting that the internet is making it more and more possible for us to talk intelligently about books we have not read. Is this a good thing? Are we getting too much information about a book before we read it and thus not leaving much for our own investigation?