Knightley's Bleak Books Obsession

The Pirates of the Caribbean star buries her nose in bleak books every chance she gets.

And among her favourites are Bernhard Schlink's Holocaust novel The Reader, which she describes as "beautiful", and Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates - the story of a couple struggling with life in 1950s America.

She tells USA Today newspaper, "(They are) two really depressing books but really good. Not exactly a barrel of laughs."

Knightley also enjoyed Gitta Sereny’s Into That Darkness: From Mercy Killing to Mass Murder - the story of World War II Nazi extermination camp Treblinka - and books by legendary war correspondent Martha Gellhorn.

She adds: "Not exactly happy, but interesting. Really great writing creates such amazing images. It's a compilation of investigative journalism. She has just gone into Dachau. It's awful, but the way she writes is wonderful. I just started it. I'd never read any Martha Gellhorn before, and she's a wonderful writer.”