The book most people have lied about reading? It's not what you think.

If you are what you read, then many of us are literary liars.

That's according to a survey that finds more than 60 percent of people pretend to have read books they haven't.

And the newest survey, by the BBC Store, has revealed the top 20 books people most commonly lie about reading.

The most-lied-about book isn't what you think it is. It's not a hefty Russian tome by the likes of Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, nor is it a Greek classic, or even a work by Dickens.

In fact, the book the most people have lied about reading is children's classic "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland," according to the BBC survey.

George Orwell's "1984," J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina," and Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," round out the top 5. Others books on the list include Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice," JD Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye," even J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series, and E.L. James' "Fifty Shades" trilogy.

The survey examined the reading habits of 2,000 Britons and found one in four people lied about reading a classic when a TV adaptation of it was shown.

"The most popular ruse [to seem more intellectual is] pretending to have read classic novels, with 42 per cent of people relying on film and TV adaptations, or summaries found online, to feign knowledge of the novels," the UK's Telegraph reports.

Interestingly, the survey also found that film and television adaptations actually encourage viewers to pick up the original text, with 44 percent saying they would be tempted to pick up a book if it had been adapted for film or TV.

Why do we lie about what we read?

For most, it's about appearing more intelligent, according to the BBC survey. Others feign reading books to fit in, or to not miss out on a conversation.

Lying about what we've read may also be a form of literary competition, according to Elizabeth Menkel.

"On one hand, we have big, painful books we feel compelled to see through to the end. On the other, the books we’ve sort of read and glibly lie about having finished," Ms. Menkel wrote for The New Yorker's Page Turner blog in 2011. "Both of these seem tied to some sort of reading scorecard, one in which the readers are measured and judged by – perhaps even more than – the books that they’ve read."

And, it turns out, appearing to be well-read may even render a person more attractive. Some 60 per cent of those surveyed in the BBC study said being well-read made a person appear more attractive.

Perhaps, then, it's as unwise to judge a person by what he or she has read – or says she's read – as it is to judge a book by its cover.

Here's a list of the Top 20 lied-about books:

1. "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland," by Lewis Carroll

2. "1984," by George Orwell

3. "The Lord Of The Rings" trilogy, by JRR Tolkien

4. "War And Peace," by Leo Tolstoy

5. "Anna Karenina," by Leo Tolstoy

6. "The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes," by Arthur Conan Doyle

7. "To Kill A Mockingbird," Harper Lee

8. "David Copperfield," by Charles Dickens

9. "Crime And Punishment," by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

10. "Pride And Prejudice," by Jane Austen

11. "Bleak House," by Charles Dickens

12. "Harry Potter" (series), by JK Rowling

13. "Great Expectations," by  Charles Dickens

14. "The Diary Of Anne Frank," by Anne Frank

15. "Oliver Twist," by Charles Dickens

16. "Fifty Shades" trilogy, by EL James

17. "And Then There Were None," by Agatha Christie

18. "The Great Gatsby," by F Scott Fitzgerald

19. "Catch 22," by Joseph Heller

20. "The Catcher In The Rye," by JD Salinger