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Making 'Birdsong,' on the one hand you have how prestigious it is and the reputation of the book, which is something that's an extraordinary piece of work. Sebastian Faulkes is a genius. So you feel that responsibility when you're portraying that character that he's imagined and millions of readers have pictured.

I am becoming increasingly difficult to please as a reader, but I adore being surprised by a really wonderful book, written by someone I've never heard of before.

As far as 'Birdsong' is concerned, I think the television program made a very honorable attempt at it, but the truth of the matter is that adaptations of long, ambitious books very seldom transfer well to the screen, and why would they?

I always loved reading. Growing up, my favorite book was 'A Child's Garden of Verses,' by Robert Louis Stevenson.

I grew up reading 'The Jungle Books' and loving them.

There isn't a book that has changed me, but I have favourites such as 'Pride and Prejudice' which I often re-read.

My favorite book is 'To Kill A Mockingbird' by Harper Lee. It is multi-layered, and I see something new in it every time I read it.

I remember thinking that people were crazy for reading the same book more than once, but I now have a new-found appreciation for the re-discovery of literature. The lessons we learned from books in the school curriculum are reinvented and updated when we read as adults.

'To Kill A Mockingbird' is one of my favourite novels, my mum brought me up reading it, and it never fails to move me.

I've always been a big fan of books.