Sage advice from Charlie Brooker:

The secret, then, is simply to let go: to not give a toss about what anyone else wants or likes or thinks in the first place. That way you won't paint yourself into a corner trying to impress them. In fact, the best strategy of all would be to actively put them off: confess to all your worst traits and guiltiest pleasures at the earliest opportunity. Tell them you don't know about that James Joop and his Ulyssesso pop-up book thingy, but you reckon James Herbert's Nazi-zombie thriller '48 is one of the most exciting books you've ever read (which it is, actually).

I'm reading The Tommyknockers by Stephen King at the moment. A bit garish, occasionally crude, and very much a tabloid sort of a book, but also immensely readable and entertaining. I'll read Ulysses if I ever get the time; having flicked through a copy of it once, though, I rather think that there are other, more important things to do before I get round to it. Like reading When the Tripods Came again. It is a lot shorter and, I rather think, a lot more fun.