blogimage

Generally, I’m quite an honest person. That’s not always a positive trait – I’m horribly tactless sometimes, and I embarrass myself on a regular basis because of my tendency to speak without thinking. But there’s one area where I can regularly be found lying my pants off.

Books.

Specifically – pretending to have read books when I’ve got no intention of doing so.

Don’t get me wrong – I love books. I have an MA in Literature (with honours in American Lit) to prove it. I spent years ploughing through the classics and I’ve got a sneaky affection for YA fiction that I should probably be embarrassed about at my age. But you know how sometimes there are books that, try as you might, you just can’t get into?

For me, it’s Lord of the Rings.

I’ve read the first couple of hundred pages of Lord of the Rings, ooh, about eight times. Because I feel like I SHOULD read Lord of the Rings.

But oh my good God, there are so many characters. Who can keep track? And the endless, endless trekking through the landscape and, ooh, look, it’s another orc, or a dragon, or a frog, or whatever the feck it’s supposed to be, around yet another corner in yet another dark mountain, and when does this bloody book get interesting? Will it ever end?

For years, if anyone asked me if I’d read Lord of the Rings, I said yes. Because it’s a Classic and a Great Book and you’re just supposed to have read it. I even dated someone who said he could never get serious with a woman who hadn’t read Lord of the Rings. For our wedding, I bought him an iPod and had the back of it engraved with the words, “By the way, I never read Lord of the Rings.”  We’d been together eight years by that point – it would have seemed churlish if he’d backed out just because of my confession.

It felt like World Book Day was the right day to come clean on this issue, so to speak. And I’m convinced I’m not the only Book Liar in the world. So I’m inviting you to share in the comments the book you most often pretend you’ve read when you haven’t.

As an incentive, I’ve got a Kobo Arc 7HD eBook Reader worth £159 to give away, complete with a £25 WH Smith voucher to spend on books with your new toy.

The Kobo is a Wi-Fi tablet running Android, that is much more than just an eBook device. You can use Facebook, Twitter, email – and download books to read on the device’s e-reading software. The great thing about Kobo is you don’t have to just get your books from the Kobo store – you can buy them from anywhere (you won’t find that on a Kindle). So you can simply install the Nook or Sony apps from Google Play, and download books from there, as well as the Kobo store. Although it’s unlikely you’ll need to look beyond the Kobo store, which has a massive 3.5m titles (more than Amazon).

To be in with a chance of winning, simply leave a comment on this post telling me what book you most recently pretended to have read.

Bonus entries are available via the Rafflecopter widget. Good Luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Terms: UK entrants aged 18 and over only. One entry per person. One winner will be chosen at random from all eligible entries using random.org and will receive one 16GB Kobo Arc 7HD tablet, as shown above.  You must comment on the competition post with the specified information to enter. Giveaway not associated with Facebook or Twitter. No cash alternative. The promoter’s decision is final. Giveaway closes at midnight GMT on 20/03/2015. Winner will be contacted by email, details will be added to this page within 7 days of the closing date.Â