A recent BT TV survey of books that adapted into successful films placed the Harry Potter collection by J K Rowling top of the list, followed by the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming.

However it was author Stephen King that had a good share of the rest with two books in the top ten and a total of five in the top 50. These were The Green Mile at three, The Shawshank Redemption at seven, The Shining at sixteen, Carrie at thirty-five and Misery at forty-six.

In the rest of the top ten Lord of the Rings films were four, The Bourne films were five, the Da Vinci Code was six, Jurassic Park was eight, Bridget Jone’s Diary was nine and Schindler’s List was ten.