Opinions: What's the best book you've never read?

JULIAN BARNES, novelist: My record is Catcher in the Rye, which I bought three copies of in different Penguin editions over a period of 20 years but never read. The title put me off - I thought it was a rural tale set in the rye fields of the Mid-West. I finally read it when I was stranded on a plane. Of course, there are some great classics that I've never read, but I'm not going to tell you which ones.

CHRIS TAPPER, printing firm manager: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I've tried, God knows I've tried. But it has a cast of thousands, all with virtually identical names. I've never got more than a third of the way through without getting hopelessly confused and giving up. It's even got a family tree in the front so you can identify who's who, but I still can't hack it.

ED VICTOR, literary agent: Brideshead Revisited. When I confessed to people in the they were so shocked that someone rushed out immediately and bought me a copy. That was about a month ago and I still haven't read it.

MARINA WARNER, writer and critic: There are hundreds] I have never even tried to read Finnegan's Wake, and I'd very much like to read Clarissa. It's because of time or often length. I've never read the whole of Proust. I studied French, so I feel I can't read it in English, but it takes too long in French.

JULIA LESTER, librarian:

The Collected Novels of Franz Kafka. I bought it through sheer snobbery.

CLARE COLLYER, publisher's assistant: When I was 11 I really wanted a copy of The Hobbit, and I pointed it out in a catalogue to my grandma. She accidentally bought the book next to it, The Poems of Byron, Shelley and Keats. I've lugged the damn thing around for nearly 20 years and all I've read is the bit that says 'To Clare, with love from Grandma'.

PAUL BOATENG, Labour MP: When I buy a book I read it, quite frankly. One that I've no intention of reading would be the Life of John Major. So he buys them but doesn't read them - it shows, doesn't it?

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