Chapter and verse on MPs' summer reading habits

A biography of the new Prime Minister by Tom Bower is among the most popular book choices in the Conservative ranks.

Top choice for Labour politicians is The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, with Alastair Campbell's The Blair Years also proving a must-read.

Their Liberal Democrat counterparts, meanwhile, prefer to curl up with the latest Harry Potter adventure.

Waterstone's, the book chain, asked 180 MPs what they planned to read during their summer break.

William Hague, the former Conservative Party leader, will be flattered to learn that his biography of anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce is the most popular all-party choice.

Other choices included classics such as Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, environmental subjects such as Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and Islam The Islamist by Ed Husain and The War of Ideas: Jihadism Against Democracy by Walid Phares.

THE TOP TEN BOOKS

1. William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner - William Hague

2. The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins

3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - JK Rowling

4. Gordon Brown - Tom Bower

5. The Blair Years - Alastair Campbell

6. Michael Foot: A Life - Kenneth O Morgan

7. Sir Robert Peel: A Biography - Douglas Hurd

8. The War of Ideas: Jihadism Against Democracy - Walid Phares

9. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - Paul Torday

10. Restless - William Boyd