Cathy Rentzenbrink

And it's often French, which I used to be able to speak and now I'm a bit rusty about.

It's often that I have to write a paper about a book that I haven't read.

And I did actually have an anxiety dream about this event and not reading this book.

Double bluff.

And when I was a bookseller, I used to have anxiety dreams about book events.

And once we were having an event at Harrods, I used to look after the events, and we were having John Simpson come to do an event.

And I dreamt the night before that I went into the Goods Inn room, all these piles of books, and Kate Adie was sitting on the piles of books saying, you've ordered the wrong bloody book!

Then as my book career progressed and I wasn't just the person in charge of the stock anymore, the dreams morphed and changed.

And now I have anxiety dreams about mispronouncing authors' names, realising it might be a panel and I haven't read any of the books and I don't know who any of the people are.

So I think that's why I don't lie, because it would cause me such...

And actually, it would genuinely cause me actual anxiety.

The thought of it is kind of slightly making me start to palpitate and feel nervous.

I just wouldn't be able to cope.

I can't cope with life as it is.

I wouldn't be able to cope with life if I was also not telling the truth.

So if I'm going to be serious for un petit moment, one of the reasons why I don't lie about what I've read is I genuinely think it's very damaging to people that might want to read when there seems to be this weight of expectation that you have to have read everything.

And because I did used to run a literacy charity and my dad couldn't read until he was in his 30s,

And I've spent lots of time with people who genuinely can't read.

And part of the thing that puts them off is because they think they have to read everything all at the same time and know it.

So every time, seriously, when you say, I haven't read that, when you say, I couldn't get into that, you are doing a beautiful human act.