Fashion designer Julien Macdonald openly admits to judging books by their covers. "Of course I do! Everything is visual first and foremost for me," he explains. "Anything becomes covetable if it's beautifully created or packaged." When his literary leanings aren't dictated by his designer's eye, Julien relies on The Guardian's Review section on Saturdays. "They have such a great stable of novelists writing for them, including one of my favourite authors, AS Byatt."
The Twits and George's Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl
"I attach a lot of sentiment to Roald Dahl and the irreverent illustrations by Quentin Blake. Dahl had the most incredible imagination, his narrative is..."
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
"I've always had a penchant for that era. Nancy Mitford, John Betjeman and Graham Greene celebrate and commentate on an age I love. Brideshead Revisited is so nostalgic. You immediately..."
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
"This is the novel that makes me cry, although it's also full of humour. It made me quite susceptible to laughing out loud at the most..."
Breakfast At Tiffany's by Truman Capote
"If I had to choose, this would be my favourite novel - although if I am to be perfectly candid, it now conjures up the incredible..."
Tender Is The Night by F Scott Fitzgerald
"I have always loved the novels of F Scott Fitzgerald. I love the romance, hedonism and tragedy of the jazz age, and aspire to the French Riviera and New York glamour Fitzgerald evokes..."
The Melancholy Death Of Oyster Boy: And Other Stories by Tim Burton
"A couple of Christmases ago,
a dear friend of mine gave me this. It's a book of fantastical poems about extraordinary, surreal children. The illustrations are wondrous; my favourites are Brie Boy and Melon Head."
Marie Antoinette by Antonia Fraser
"This is at the top of my must-read list. Antonia Fraser is a great historian and I was completely captivated by..."