I haven't read this yet, but he's on the money: it's much easier to talk about books you haven't read - there are so many more of them, plus reading a book takes so much longer than not reading it...

In the days before Amazon I trawled second-hand bookshops looking for a copy of this for several years - yet now, several more years later, it sits on a shelf still unread. One of many.

I spent ages trying to track down a copy of this as well. It seems ridiculous now when any book can be tracked down online in seconds and I still haven't got round to reading it.

I've started this several times and been captivated, but every time I try to come back to it after putting it down I feel I've lost the flow of it and just have to start again...

What a book for long dark winter nights: fantastic escapism - literally! Years ago my local library had a massive copy of the trilogy, but I only got through Titus Groan before I had to return it.

Something I bought for 50p once because it sounded interesting: an Englishman is plucked from obscurity to become Pope and ends up selling the treasures of the Vatican to raise money for the poor.

When I bought this from a charity shop some years ago the woman at the counter wished me luck - saying that she hadn't been able to make head nor tail of it. It sounds like a real mindf***.

This is the book I most wish I'd read as a kid. Of those I did my favourite was No Way of Telling by Emma Smith in which a girl and her gran are snowed in - I love snowbound novels...

A comic novel famous for its masturbation scenes. How have I managed to keep my hands off it? Perhaps it's for the best though. How would I read any of these books if I went blind?

I managed to plough through Bill Bryson's not-very Short History of Almost Everything, so why can't I find the time for something as succinct as a history of the world in 10½ chapters?

Another 20th Century classic I haven't read yet. I know, I know, stop banging on about it you'll give me a headache.