I FIND it hard to believe that Jane Austen was the author most people turned to when they became bored during lockdown.

Sales of the Penguin edition of Pride and Prejudice shot up by 22 per cent last year, according to analysts Nielsen BookScan.

I find Austen’s novels as engaging as watching paint dry. I remember struggling not to fall asleep as we read Emma in English literature at school.

I would have thought people would turn to something that offered escapism as the antidote to lockdown, like Bill Bryson’s Neither Here nor There, or David Nicholls’ Us. And if it’s love and romance you’re after, 50 Shades of Grey would surely do more to awaken your lockdown-dulled senses than Austen’s coy bunch.