Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt

“Have you actually READ all these books?” Jackie, genuinely astonished, asked Buck, as she surveyed the walls of Buck’s living room, three of four of which were entirely “bricked,” from floor to ceiling, with what appeared to be thousands of books.

“Nah, just one or two of them. They’re mostly eye candy, for my intellectual friends,” Buck falsely demurred.

“It looks like some pretty heady stuff.” Jackie slipped a book entitled, The Phenomenology of Mind, off one eye-level shelf.

“I never did let my reading get in the way of my education,” Buck punned, as he wondered if Jackie might be familiar with the inimitable Mr. Twain.