On the subject of how to talk about a book you've read that no one around you has read: you're not in a conversation, you're delivering a monologue. The best you can do is make the case for why the book matters without producing the experience of reading it, which you cannot do.

I've developed a formula for this. I say what the book is doing — what question it's asking, not what happens. I say who I think it's for — what kind of reader would find it most useful or moving. I say what the reading experience is like — demanding, pleasurable, strange, sad. I don't try to summarize or explain.

This approach is imperfect and slightly frustrating. The only solution to the problem of recommending books is to lend them.