The best response to someone asking you about a book you haven’t read is to own up – immediately. The main reason for not lying about what you’ve read, of course, is that the lie somehow seems to stop you from actually getting round to the book. It’s also rather chic to be honest about this. I asked the bestselling novelist David Nicholls what he thought of DH Lawrence a few years ago and he said: ‘I would be more eloquent about this if I’d ever got to the end of one of his novels – and I never have.’