Chris McCausland: Which book are you ashamed not to have read?

Which book are you ashamed not to have read?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

A fixed Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Chris McCausland said elsewhere, not written here

To Kill a Mockingbird – I was meant to read it for an exam and I didn’t and I cheated. I was allowed to use a laptop to type my answers because I couldn’t see my writing, so I hid an electronic copy of the book on the laptop.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 November 2025 source ↗

Others on this question

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Romola Garai

I’ve never read any Proust.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 September 2024 source ↗

Corinne Bailey Rae

I’m not really ashamed, but I haven’t read Lord of the Rings.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 September 2023 source ↗

Pauline Black

Nineteen Eighty-Four. I always meant to read it before 1984, and once 1984 had passed I didn’t see the point.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 April 2025 source ↗

Siobhán McSweeney

I feel no shame about not reading a book. That’s silly.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 December 2023 source ↗

More from Chris McCausland

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Question Which moment embarrassed you most? Failure & regret

When I was losing my sight, I couldn’t see where I was going, and I went into an undertaker’s thinking it was a barber’s. I asked the undertaker whether he had many waiting.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 November 2025 source ↗

Question When were you happiest? Time & hindsight

My college years when I was 17 to 19, before the responsibilities of adulthood, just doing the things that I was good at and liked – computers, maths, further maths (I was a geek).

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 November 2025 source ↗