Julia Sawalha's 6 best books

Julia Sawalha is an English actor who played Lydia Bennet in Pride and Prejudice (the 1995 mini-series starring Colin Firth).

One of Sawalha's six best books, as told to the Daily Express:

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

One of those reads which helps you realise you can be happy with what you’ve got.

Madame Bovary is such a fantastic tragic heroine.

I love the extreme of her dull country life and this world of romance and fantasy she creates. It’s full of hope and despair.

Read about another book on the list.

Madame Bovary is on Jennifer Gilmore's list of the ten worst mothers in books, Amy Sohn's list of six favorite books, Sue Townsend's 6 best books list, Helena Frith Powell's list of ten of the best sexy French books, the Christian Science Monitor's list of six novels about grand passions, John Mullan's lists of ten landmark coach rides in literature, ten of the best cathedrals in literature, ten of the best balls in literature, ten of the best bad lawyers in literature, ten of the best lotharios in literature, and ten of the best bad doctors in fiction, Valerie Martin's list of six novels about doomed marriages, and Louis Begley's list of favorite novels about cheating lovers. It tops Peter Carey's list of the top ten works of literature and was second on a top ten works of literature list selected by leading writers from Britain, America and Australia in 2007. It is one of John Bowe's six favorite books on love.

--Marshal Zeringue