People were in the firing line this week for claiming to read books they have never picked up.

Apparently lots of people say they have read George Orwell's 1984 when they haven't, Tolstoy's War and Peace, or even the Bible.

I am among the 25 per cent who admit fraudulently claiming to have enjoyed James Joyce's Ulysses.

I've had a bash at the Dublin doorstep in the past, but I haven't got very far, and it is still very much on my To Read list.

I have to confess there are many books that I have started and not finished. But I do insist on never flicking to the end of a novel to find out how the story ends. That would be very bad form.

Horrid Henry writer Francesca Simon was once tempted to tell porky pies when an Oxford don asked her if she was familiar with Italo Calvino. I have to admit that I'm not either.

After reading Graham Swift's Making an Elephant, a collection of autobiographical essays, I realised to my shame that I have not completed his novel Waterland, which was made into a very entertaining film in the early 1990s.

I'm pretty sure I saw the movie in the Phoenix Cinema in Walton Street, and I shall return to the novel, now that I can feel a Swift phase coming on.

Quite a few people have recommended Last Orders to me, and I also have a copy of Tomorrow in my library, so I could be busy for quite some time.

Talking of libraries, I was at the central library in Westgate, Oxford, today to put together a story about how it has become the fourth busiest municipal library in the UK.

I'm fond of the second-hand section there and snapped up a paperback copy of The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox for 20p.

A recent John Irving title at the same price looked tempting, but it topped 900 pages, so I reluctantly put it back. Now that doesn't happen very often.

I should have picked up some David Peace novels after watching the stark Channel 4 TV drama Red Riding, but I was too busy talking to library staff.

Another book landing on my desk this week was Sophie Hannah's The Other Half Lives.

It looks interesting and comes with a recommendation from one of my newspaper pals.