Short is the joy that guilty pleasure brings, said (the miserable old sod) Euripides. I disagree, and I'm excited to find out what this survey for World Book Day on 5 March, looking into people's secret reading habits, will uncover.

My own guilty reading starts with Georgette Heyer - just picking up one of the many battered paperbacks stashed around the house is like snuggling up in front of the fire with a mug of hot chocolate. Comfort reading, times a thousand. In the same vein, over Christmas I found Anya Seton's Dragonwyck in a secondhand shop and entered a Heyer-esque world of handsome villains, vengeful ghosts and beautiful farm girls - I fell headlong in love, and am full of joy to realise that Seton has a considerable backlist to mine. It's taking me a while to get hold of them, because although she's still in print, I want to read the older editions - like my old Heyers, there's something very cosy about them that the new versions just don't capture.

I can't mention guilty pleasures without admitting to having all of Jilly Cooper's blockbusters on my shelves, although when it comes to re-reading these, I only go back to her earlier novels. The schoolboy sex of Wicked!, and the pantomime villains of Score!, just didn't do it for me. (It could be partly down to the irritating exclamation marks in their titles! Nothing is ever improved with the addition of an exclamation mark!)

My shameful reading tastes don't stop with romance though - any new Stephen King novel will be mine (just as soon as it's knocked down to half price in Smiths). I have the dubious ability of being able to forget his storylines within a couple of years, so re-reading them is always a scary pleasure, if I wait long enough.

And if I'm going to make a real clean breast of it, I'm also going to have to admit to a penchant for fantasy - the walking holiday we did in Cornwall was made considerably harder by the three 600-plus page Robin Hobb novels I lugged along with me - once I start a series, I find it hard to stop - and I am eagerly awaiting the new George RR Martin out later this year (although it'll be one for reading at home, I'm not lugging 1000-odd pages to work with me).

So, I've shown you mine, it's time for you to show me yours. And don't be scared - at least you can do it anonymously.