"This destroyed me. It’s about examining the choices in Levy’s life that lead her to a particular event documented in the book, but at the same time the book has a lot of joy in it. Many of female writers that I admire at the moment have that same stripped back, modernist style—a kind of reportage. It’s also liberating to write about something that awful in such bare, stark terms."

"I’d say Night of the Hunter. It’s an amazing film. That’s where the original “love” and “hate” tattoos on the hand came from. A lot of people don’t know that. You know, the good Christianity, the true Christianity, versus the false prophet thing that plays out in there, and the imagery. It’s an intense and beautiful film. And I love Robert Mitchum. I wish he’d come back to life"

"I was working at a funeral home when I found this novel. Being 14, I did a lot of thinking about death, and, conversely, how to live. Love in the Time of Cholera made me feel as if I were walking next to the characters as they laughed, loved, lived and died in a world filled with spirits. Márquez raised my consciousness by taking me gently into other realms."

"At the moment she’s in the news for all the wrong reasons [the 71-year-old Mitchell was recently hospitalised after being found unconscious at her LA home]. So I would like to get it on record that I’m a fan. The emotional content is great, but the sheer musicality of it all is amazing – it’s written on a dulcimer, one drone string, which really appeals to me a lot"

"Clint Eastwood is an inspiration to me as an actor. He, Robert Redford, and Michael Landon, might be three of my biggest influences as an actor. In each of those cases, it’s the fact that they play everything with a “less is more” style. There’s just something about that style that I try to tap into every now and then; it’s definitely my approach to a lot of things."

"I first saw this in 1995, when I was seventeen. My boyfriend actually left the room because it was too intense; he apparently couldn’t stomach the potent cocktail of Chloe Webb’s screeching and Gary Oldman’s rheumy-eyed menace. Even though the movie was set in a time we couldn’t remember, it mirrored our teen zeitgeist in a lot of ways. We’d just made it through the second wave of punk."

"I took this title for one of my songs on my third album and dedicated it to my sister; she loves this one too. The last John Cassavetes film . . . I heard he was ill throughout a lot of the making of this and, in the final scene, he waves good-bye. It’s really touching. His real-life wife, Gena Rowlands, is one of my all-time favorite actresses."

"Oh God, I love this lot. They're very different to The Wilsons or The Watersons, who are robust, full-voiced and loud, in that they're very gentle. Frank's got this ethereal quiver, Phil this lyrical tone, Joey this bass that grounds the music, and binds everything together. This is the perfect combination of voices to me, so uplifting, joyous and emotional, while making it feel so seamless and effortless.
"

"I have favorite chick flicks and favorite comedies. My taste goes to romantic comedy a lot. Somewhere in Time, with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour — stop already! That was one of the most romantic stories I’d ever seen in my life; I was in tears, but it also involved a little bit of science fiction, with the time travel element. That one really moved me back in 1980."