[TIME] Her answer to "What is your favorite book and why?" - My dad read me The BFG by Roald Dahl when I was younger. I'm really fond of that book. [Savoir Flair] Of course I love Roald Dahl, like anyone else in the world.

Captured by a giant! The BFG is no ordinary bone-crunching giant. He is far too nice and jumbly. It's lucky for Sophie that he is. Had she been carried off in the middle of the night by the Bloodbottler, the Fleshlumpeater, the Bonecruncher, or any of the other giants-rather than the BFG-she would have soon become breakfast. When Sophie hears that they are flush-bunking off in England to swollomp a few nice little chiddlers, she decides she must stop them once and for all. And the BFG is going to help her!

Her answer to "What is your favorite book and why?"

The Little Prince, first published in 1943, is a novella and the most famous work of the French aristocrat, writer, poet and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. At first glance, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s 1943 classic The Little Prince—with its winsome illustrations of a boy prince and his tiny planet—appears to be a children’s fairy tale. It doesn’t take long, however, to discover that it speaks to readers of all ages. This pocket-sized edition, perfect for teens, features Saint-Exupéry’s original full-color illustrations and the unabridged text, a reader’s guide, and a introduction by Gregory Maguire. Rediscover—or share—the magic!

[Savoir Flair] I have had Patti Smith's 'Just Kids' on my bedside forever. [Vogue US] She describes a recent turning point when she read Just Kids, Patti Smith’s 2010 memoir, in which she writes of discovering that her true calling lay in “three chords merged with the power of the word.” Smith’s willingness to embrace the highs and lows of a creative life touched something in Emma. “I want to live like Patti. I want to write like Patti,” she says. “The book was so honest and brave. I loved the way she sees the world. I really felt that life was more beautiful after I read it, and I felt more hopeful.” - http://www.vogue.com/865432/emma-watsons-new-day/

In Just Kids, Patti Smith's first book of prose, the legendary American artist offers a never-before-seen glimpse of her remarkable relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the epochal days of New York City and the Chelsea Hotel in the late sixties and seventies. An honest and moving story of youth and friendship, Smith brings the same unique, lyrical quality to Just Kids as she has to the rest of her formidable body of work--from her influential 1975 album Horses to her visual art and poetry.

I just read 'Siddhartha,' which was recommended to me by a friend.

A young Indian mystic, a contemporary of Buddha, sacrifices everything to search for the true meaning of life. Siddhartha is a novel by Hermann Hesse that deals with the spiritual journey of a boy known as Siddhartha from the Indian subcontinent during the time of the Buddha. The book, Hesse's ninth novel, was written in German, in a simple yet powerful and lyrical style. It was published in the U.S. in 1951 and became influential during the 1960s. The word Siddhartha is made up of two words in the Sanskrit language, siddha (achieved) + artha (meaning or wealth). The two words together mean "he who has found meaning (of existence)" or "he who has attained his goals". The Buddha's name, before his renunciation, was Prince Siddhartha Gautama. In this book, the Buddha is referred to as "Gotama".

Russell Crowe, who I am working with on a film, gave me John Fowles' 'The Magus.'

This daring literary thriller, rich with eroticism and suspense, is one of John Fowles's best-loved and bestselling novels and has contributed significantly to his international reputation as a writer of the first rank. At the center of The Magus is Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman who accepts a teaching position on a remote Greek island, where he befriends a local millionaire. The friendship soon evolves into a deadly game in which reality and fantasy are deliberately manipulated, and Nicholas finds that he must fight not only for his sanity but for his very survival.

Of course I love Roald Dahl, like anyone else in the world. And William Blake, who is a genius poet. And Oscar Wilde, who is really wonderful.

Also recommended by: Rebel Wilson

Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, and fighter pilot. He wrote the kids' classics Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, among other famous works. He was married to actress Patricia Neal.

Of course I love Roald Dahl, like anyone else in the world. And William Blake, who is a genius poet. And Oscar Wilde, who is really wonderful.

William Blake was an English painter, poet and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. William Blake was born in London on November 28, 1757, to James, a hosier, and Catherine Blake. Two of his six siblings died in infancy. From early childhood, Blake spoke of having visions—at four he saw God “put his head to the window”; around age nine, while walking dathrough the countryside, he saw a tree filled with angels. Although his parents tried to discourage him from “lying," they did observe that he was different from his peers and did not force him to attend conventional school. He learned to read and write at home. At age ten, Blake expressed a wish to become a painter, so his parents sent him to drawing school.

Of course I love Roald Dahl, like anyone else in the world. And William Blake, who is a genius poet. And Oscar Wilde, who is really wonderful.

Oscar Fingall O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, Oxford where, a disciple of Pater, he founded an aesthetic cult. In 1884 he married Constance Lloyd, and his two sons were born in 1885 and 1886. His novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), and social comedies Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), established his reputation. In 1895, following his libel action against the Marquess of Queesberry, Wilde was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for homosexual conduct, as a result of which he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), and his confessional letter De Profundis (1905). On his release from prison in 1897 he lived in obscurity in Europe, and died in Paris in 1900.

Her answer to "Who are your favorite authors?" - They are the authors I studied at university: William Blake, TS Eliot, Keats, Shelley, the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen.

Thomas Stearns Eliot OM was an essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic and "one of the twentieth century's major poets." He was born in St. Louis, Missouri to an old Yankee family. Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri, and became a British subject in 1927. The acclaimed poet of The Waste Land, Four Quartets, and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, among numerous other poems, prose, and works of drama, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. T.S. Eliot died in 1965 in London, England, and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Her answer to "Who are your favorite authors?" - They are the authors I studied at university: William Blake, TS Eliot, Keats, Shelley, the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen.

John Keats was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley despite his work having been in publication for only four years before his death. John Keats, who died at the age of twenty-five, had perhaps the most remarkable career of any English poet. He published only fifty-four poems, in three slim volumes and a few magazines. But at each point in his development he took on the challenges of a wide range of poetic forms from the sonnet, to the Spenserian romance, to the Miltonic epic, defining anew their possibilities with his own distinctive fusion of earnest energy, control of conflicting perspectives and forces, poetic self-consciousness, and, occasionally, dry ironic wit. In the case of the English ode he brought its form, in the five great odes of 1819, to its most perfect definition.

Her answer to "Who are your favorite authors?" - They are the authors I studied at university: William Blake, TS Eliot, Keats, Shelley, the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), perhaps the most intellectually adventurous of the great Romantic poets, personified the richly various- and contradictory- energies of his time. A classicist, a headlong visionary, a social radical, and a poet of serene artistry with a lyric touch second to none, Shelley gave voice to English romanticism's deepest aspirations. Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets, and is regarded by critics as amongst the finest lyric poets in the English language. A radical in his poetry as well as his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition for his poetry grew steadily following his death. Shelley is perhaps best known for such classic poems as Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, Music, When Soft Voices Die, The Cloud and The Masque of Anarchy. His other major works include long, visionary poems such as Queen Mab (later reworked as The Daemon of the World), Alastor, The Revolt of Islam, Adonaïs, the unfinished work The Triumph of Life; and the visionary verse dramas The Cenci (1819) and Prometheus Unbound (1820).

Her answer to "Who are your favorite authors?" - They are the authors I studied at university: William Blake, TS Eliot, Keats, Shelley, the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen.

The Brontës were a nineteenth-century literary family associated with the village of Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, are well known as poets and novelists. They originally published their poems and novels under the male pseudonyms Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, much like many contemporary female writers. Their stories immediately attracted attention, although not always the best, for their passion and originality. Charlotte's Jane Eyre was the first to know success, while Emily's Wuthering Heights, Anne's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and other works were later to be accepted as masterpieces of literature.

Her answer to "Who are your favorite authors?" - They are the authors I studied at university: William Blake, TS Eliot, Keats, Shelley, the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen.

Also recommended by: Marina Sirtis

Though the domain of Jane Austen's novels was as circumscribed as her life, her caustic wit and keen observation made her the equal of the greatest novelists in any language. Born the seventh child of the rector of Steventon, Hampshire, on December 16, 1775, she was educated mainly at home. At an early age she began writing sketches and satires of popular novels for her family's entertainment. As a clergyman's daughter from a well-connected family, she had an ample opportunity to study the habits of the middle class, the gentry, and the aristocracy. At twenty-one, she began a novel called "The First Impressions" an early version of Pride and Prejudice. In 1801, on her father's retirement, the family moved to the fashionable resort of Bath. So begins Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's witty comedy of manners--one of the most popular novels of all time--that features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues.

I know, it's a cult. I'm not going to take it too far, but I did enjoy it.

When The Fountainhead was first published, Ayn Rand''s daringly original literary vision and her groundbreaking philosophy, Objectivism, won immediate worldwide interest and acclaim. This instant classic is the story of an intransigent young architect, his violent battle against conventional standards, and his explosive love affair with a beautiful woman who struggles to defeat him. This edition contains a special afterword by Rand's literary executor, Leonard Peikoff, which includes excerpts from Ayn Rand's own notes on the making of The Fountainhead. As fresh today as it was then, here is a novel about a hero-and about those who try to destroy him.

[Stylist Magazine] Her answer to "What’s on your reading list at college?" - In my first year I did the history of the modern Middle East, so was reading an author called [Zachary] Lockman. One of my classes was introduction to Italian film and history and we watched a ton of amazing Italian films which was really cool.

In Comrades and Enemies Zachary Lockman explores the mutually formative interactions between the Arab and Jewish working classes, labor movements, and worker-oriented political parties in Palestine just before and during the period of British colonial rule. Unlike most of the historical and sociological literature on Palestine in this period, Comrades and Enemies avoids treating the Arab and Jewish communities as if they developed independently of each other. Instead of focusing on politics, diplomacy, or military history, Lockman draws on detailed archival research in both Arabic and Hebrew, and on interviews with activists, to delve into the country's social, economic, and cultural history, showing how Arab and Jewish societies in Palestine helped to shape each other in significant ways. Comrades and Enemies presents a narrative of Arab-Jewish relations in Palestine that extends and complicates the conventional story of primordial identities, total separation, and unremitting conflict while going beyond both Zionist and Palestinian nationalist mythologies and paradigms of interpretation.

[Women's Weekly] "I had a list of 10 books I was going to read this summer and I’ve read just one, Tracey Emin’s ‘Strangeland’.” The remaining nine books, including Vladmir Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’, ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Joseph Heller’s ‘Catch-22′ are listed on her mobile phone.

A combination of deeply intimate memoirs and confessions that are powerfully engaging. "Here I am, a fucked, crazy, anorexic-alcoholic-childless, beautiful woman. I never dreamt it would be like this." Tracey Emin's "Strangeland" is her own space, lying between the Margate of her childhood, the Turkey of her forefathers, and her own, private-public life in present-day London. Her writings, a combination of memoirs and confessions, are deeply intimate, yet powerfully engaging. Tracey retains a profoundly romantic world view, paired with an uncompromising honesty. Her capacity both to create controversies and to strike chords is unequaled. It is a remarkable book—and an original, beautiful mind.

[Women's Weekly] "I had a list of 10 books I was going to read this summer and I’ve read just one, Tracey Emin’s ‘Strangeland’.” The remaining nine books, including Vladmir Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’, ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Joseph Heller’s ‘Catch-22′ are listed on her mobile phone.

Also recommended by: Anthony Bourdain

Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, written in English & published in 1955 in Paris, in 1958 in NY & in 1959 in London. It was later translated by its Russian-native author into Russian. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist & unreliable narrator, a 37–38-year-old literature professor, Humbert Humbert, is obsessed with the 12-year-old Dolores Haze, with whom he becomes sexually involved after he becomes her stepfather. "Lolita" is his private nickname for Dolores (both the name & nickname are of Spanish origin). After its publication, Lolita attained a classic status, becoming one of the best-known & most controversial examples of 20th century literature. The name "Lolita" has entered pop culture to describe a sexually precocious girl. The novel was adapted to film by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, & again in 1997 by Adrian Lyne. It has also been adapted several times for stage & has been the subject of two operas, two ballets & an acclaimed but failed Broadway musical.

[Women's Weekly] "I had a list of 10 books I was going to read this summer and I’ve read just one, Tracey Emin’s ‘Strangeland’.” The remaining nine books, including Vladmir Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’, ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Joseph Heller’s ‘Catch-22′ are listed on her mobile phone.

Also recommended by: Tom Papa, Adam Savage, Tory Burch, Kari Byron

One of the world's most famous novels, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, blends the natural with the supernatural in on one of the most magical reading experiences on earth. 'Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice' Gabriel Garcia Marquez's great masterpiece is the story of seven generations of the Buendia family and of Macondo, the town they have built. Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and its miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book, and only Aureliano Buendia can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny. Blending political reality with magic realism, fantasy and comic invention, One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most daringly original works of the twentieth century. 'Dazzling' The New York Times As one of the pioneers of magic realism and perhaps the most prominent voice of Latin American literature, Gabriel Garcia Marquez has received international recognition for his novels, works of non-fiction and collections of short stories. Those published in translation by Penguin include Autumn of the Patriarch, Bon Voyage Mr.President, Collected Stories, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, The General in his Labyrinth, Innocent Erendira and Other Stories, In the Evil Hour, Leaf Storm, Living to Tell the Tale, Love in the Time of Cholera, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, News of a Kidnapping, No-one Writes to the Colonel, Of Love and Other Demons, The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor and Strange Pilgrims.

[Women's Weekly] "I had a list of 10 books I was going to read this summer and I’ve read just one, Tracey Emin’s ‘Strangeland’.” The remaining nine books, including Vladmir Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’, ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Joseph Heller’s ‘Catch-22′ are listed on her mobile phone.

Also recommended by: Eddie Pepitone

Catch-22 is a satirical novel by the American author Joseph Heller. At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save his skin from the horrible chances of war. His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions that he's committed to flying, he's trapped by the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, the bureaucratic rule from which the book takes its title: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes the necessary formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he's sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved. Fifty years after its original publication, Catch-22 remains a cornerstone of American lit-erature and one of the funniestand most celebratednovels of all time. In recent years it has been named to best novels lists by Time, Newsweek, the Modern Library, and the London Observer. Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemyit is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions hes assigned, hell be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved. Since its publication in 1961, no novel has matched Catch-22s intensity and brilliance in depicting the brutal insanity of war. This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Hellers masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; personal essays on the genesis of the novel by the author; a wealth of critical responses and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Hellers personal archive; and a selection of advertisements from the original publishing campaign that helped turn Catch-22 into a cultural phenomenon. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.

After shopping classes, she settled on European women's history, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and acting. “I think actually I'm the worst person in the class,” says Watson cheerily.

Ovid’s sensuous and witty poem brings together a dazzling array of mythological tales, ingeniously linked by the idea of transformation—often as a result of love or lust—where men and women find themselves magically changed into new and sometimes extraordinary beings. Beginning with the creation of the world and ending with the deification of Augustus, Ovid interweaves many of the best-known myths and legends of ancient Greece and Rome, including Daedalus and Icarus, Pyramus and Thisbe, Pygmalion, Perseus and Andromeda, and the fall of Troy. Erudite but light-hearted, dramatic and yet playful, the Metamorphoses has influenced writers and artists throughout the centuries from Shakespeare and Titian to Picasso and Ted Hughes.

Listed as Emma's favourites on her official website EmmaWatson.com (now offline) - I Capture the Castle by Dodi Smith, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (also mentioned in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar in 2011), The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger.

Dodie Smith's first novel transcends the oft-stodgy definition of "a classic" by being as brightly witty and adventuresome as it was when published nearly fifty years ago. I Capture the Castle tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Here she strives, over six turbulent months, to hone her writing skills. She fills three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries. Her journals candidly chronicle the great changes that take place within the castle's walls, and her own first descent into love. By the time she pens her final entry, she has "captured the castle"--and the heart of the reader--in one of literature's most enchanting entertainments.

Listed as Emma's favourites on her official website EmmaWatson.com (now offline) - I Capture the Castle by Dodi Smith, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (also mentioned in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar in 2011), The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger.

The Remains of the Day (1989) is Kazuo Ishiguro's third published novel. The work was awarded the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1989. A film adaptation of the novel, made in 1993 and starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, was nominated for eight Academy Awards. In 1956, Stevens, a long-serving butler at Darlington Hall, decides to take a motoring trip through the West Country. The six-day excursion becomes a journey into the past of Stevens and England, a past that takes in fascism, two world wars and an unrealised love between the butler and his housekeeper. Ishiguro’s dazzling novel is a sad and humorous love story, a meditation on the condition of modern man, and an elegy for England at a time of acute change.

Listed as Emma's favourites on her official website EmmaWatson.com (now offline) - I Capture the Castle by Dodi Smith, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (also mentioned in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar in 2011), The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger.

Also recommended by: Kurt Warner, Deepika Padukone

The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons-their love, their sacrifices, their lies. A sweeping story of family, love, and friendship told against the devastating backdrop of the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful novel that has become a beloved, one of a kind classic.

Listed as Emma's favourites on her official website EmmaWatson.com (now offline) - I Capture the Castle by Dodi Smith, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (also mentioned in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar in 2011), The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger.

Also recommended by: Woody Allen, Kari Byron, Chris D'Elia, John Leguizamo, Gwyneth Paltrow

The Catcher in the Rye 1951 novel J. D. Salinger. A controversial novel originally published for adults, it has since become popular with adolescent readers for its themes of teenage angst and alienation. It has been translated into almost all of the world's major languages. Around 250,000 copies are sold each year with total sales of more than 65 million books. The novel's protagonist Holden Caulfield has become an icon for teenage rebellion. The novel also deals with complex issues of identity, belonging, loss, connection, and alienation. The novel was included on Time '​s 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923, and it was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2003, it was listed at #15 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.

[TIME] The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón - She was in the middle of the book at the moment of the interview.

In this powerful, labyrinthian thriller, David Martín is a pulp fiction writer struggling to stay afloat. Holed up in a haunting abandoned mansion in the heart of Barcelona, he furiously taps out story after story, becoming increasingly desperate and frustrated; thus, when he is approached by a mysterious publisher offering a book deal that seems almost too good to be real, David leaps at the chance. But as he begins the work, and after a visit to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, he realizes there is a connection between his book and the shadows that surround his dilapidated home and that the publisher may be hiding a few troubling secrets of his own. Once again, Ruiz Zafón ventures into a dark, gothic Barcelona and creates a breathtaking tale of intrigue, romance, and tragedy.

My other guilty pleasure is Twilight. I love those books. This is so sad, but I literaly felt depressed when I finished reading them because I thought, “Oh my God, what am I going to do now?

Also recommended by: Mitt Romney

Twilight is a series of four vampire-themed fantasy romance novels by American author Stephenie Meyer. It charts a period in the life of Isabella "Bella" Swan, a teenage girl who moves to Forks, Washington, and falls in love with a 104-year-old vampire named Edward Cullen. The series is told primarily from Bella's point of view, with the epilogue of Eclipse and Part II of Breaking Dawn being told from the viewpoint of character Jacob Black, a werewolf. Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, The Twilight Saga capture the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. Isabella Swan's move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Isabella's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Isabella, the person Edward holds most dear. The lovers find themselves balanced precariously on the point of a knife-between desire and danger. Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite.

[Girl’s Life] Noughts and Crosses series: Knife Edge and An Eye for an Eye - "Best book in the world... they’re so good"

Two young people are forced to make a stand in this thought-provoking look at racism and prejudice in an alternate society. Sephy is a Cross -- a member of the dark-skinned ruling class. Callum is a Nought -- a “colourless” member of the underclass who were once slaves to the Crosses. The two have been friends since early childhood, but that’s as far as it can go. In their world, Noughts and Crosses simply don’t mix. Against a background of prejudice and distrust, intensely highlighted by violent terrorist activity, a romance builds between Sephy and Callum -- a romance that is to lead both of them into terrible danger. Can they possibly find a way to be together?

"There's a book that I read when I was very young - 'The Constant Princess' by Philippa Gregory, about Catherine of Aragon - and I know it sounds silly, but I thought, "I've got to be just like her". She was the first wife of Henry VIII and she survived, having been cruelly divorced. I remember being really inspired by that."

The Constant Princess is a historical fiction novel by Philippa Gregory, published in 2005. The novel depicts a highly fictionalized version of the life of Catherine of Aragon and her rise to power in England. Set in the rich beauty of Moorish Spain and the glamour of the Tudor court, The Constant Princess presents a woman whose constancy helps her endure betrayal, poverty, and despair, until the inevitable moment when she steps into the role she has prepared for all her life: Henry VIII's Queen, Regent, and commander of the English army in their greatest victory against Scotland.