I feel slightly guilty and slightly ashamed.

At least two years ago now, my sister told me the hero to beat all heroes in literature was Adam Bede - and she lent me her lovingly thumbed edition and made me swear not to damage it.

Well, that was a mistake because for the next two years it became my excuse not to read it. I might spill coffee down it, crease a page or leave a greasy thumb print between chapters. Heaven forbid - this book was far too precious to read.

However, my conscience eventually got the better of me. I gave it back, unread, at Christmas. But, having promised to buy my own un-precious edition, I felt obliged to do the decent thing and now, sitting on the windowsill by my bed, is one brand spanking new edition of Adam Bede by George Eliot.

I should explain my aversion. A-levels. Middlemarch. Need I say more?

Big Sis, however, insists I will fall in love Mr Bede and forgive Ms Eliot two years of literary despair.

So far, I’ve read the first chapter, and I have to say, it was okay, although the olde-worlde Midlandsy dialect made for slow reading.

And so one lazy afternoon when I fancied curling up with a book, I thought ‘do I fancy olde-worlde Midlandsy slowness or do I fancy a rip-roaring, easy reading RP yarn?’ And that was where George Orwell reared his head. Animal Farm. An hour and half - job done. I can’t really tell you much about it because it sped by so quickly, but it’s an easy read and Orwell is at his best when he’s railing against capitalism and the ills of society.

Inspired by Animal Farm I then noticed on my bookshelf Keep the Aspidistra Flying, also by Mr Orwell. For 20 years, it had gone the same way as Adam Bede: opened, first few pages read, bored now, fancy something else. So I decided I’d make it all the way through this time.

I did but it wasn’t easy. It tells the story of Gordon Comstock, a man who is a talented advertising copywriter but decides to wage a war on money by being deliberately poor. So he works in a second-hand bookshop for £2 a week and spends most of the novel whingeing about money. He was annoying but I quite liked Rosemary, his girlfriend, and Ravelston, his best friend.

Anyway, he’s poor, he whinges, he makes £10 and blows it all, loses his job, gets poorer, whinges even more and then goes back to the decent job and gets married and lives happily ever after. If I’ve ruined the ending, I’m sorry, but I really don’t recommend reading it, so I’ve saved you the pain.

I think I must have read the good Orwells already - Down and Out in Paris and London, 1984, Animal Farm. Aspidistra was a bit of a dud.

Anyway, then I thought ‘I really must read Adam Bede now’. But then I tidied my desk and found a newly bought and instantly forgotten about copy of Fair Play by Tove Jansson (the Moomintroll lady), just crying out to be read.

I’ll just finish that and then it’s Adam Bede. Honest. Especially as my sister’s coming to visit next week, so the pressure’s on.