Kate Beckinsale Felt 'Completely Overwhelmed' Reading 'The Hunger Games'

Like millions around the world, actress Kate Beckinsale was blown away by Suzanne Collins' wildly popular "Hunger Games" trilogy.

"My daughter [Lily]'s school encouraged all the parents and teachers and students to read 'The Hunger Games,' so it promoted a massive discussion of it," Beckinsale, 38, tells Parade. "For some reason, my daughter was a little bit resistant to it at first, but then we just were all completely overwhelmed by it."

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"It was actually this summer that we were all reading it and loving it," the "Serendipity" actress says. "We can't wait for the movie. It looks fantastic."

Beckinsale insists she's always been a bit of a bookworm.

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"I loved all the E. Nesbit books like 'Five Children' and 'It' and 'The Enchanted Castle.' As I got older, we had a real craze in our country called 'The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole,' which everybody was really into. I was reading 'Jane Eyre' when I was 11 and I loved that. Actually, my daughter read 'Jane Eyre' when she was 11, too."

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"I wasn't very frightened of classic novels," says Beckinsale, married to director Len Wiseman. "I feel like my brain is more geared towards a novel than it is to a movie."

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