SANTA MONTEFIORE

Santa Montefiore is a Sunday Times bestselling author. She sent out her first manuscript to agents under a pseudonym because her sister was the socialite Tara Palmer Tomkinson and Santa wanted her book to be accepted on its merits and not because of her family associations. Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree, her first novel, was published in 2001, and since then she’s written a novel every year and sold more than six million copies worldwide. Santa also co-writes a series of children’s books, The Royal Rabbits of London, with her husband, historian Simon Sebag-Montefiore.

A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle

‘In my opinion Eckhart Tolle is the most important spiritual teacher of our time. He’s wise and enlightened and a massive inspiration to me. His first book, was a huge bestseller all over the world, and I found it illuminating, but knocked me for six. It’s about transcending our ego-based state of consciousness in order to find a peaceful, harmonious way of living. All the discord in the world derives from Man’s ego and I discovered, very quickly on starting the book, that the disharmony in my world derived from my changed my life profoundly and I reread it every now and again to remind me of the wonderful lessons in it.’