Harry Potter star Emma Watson leaves books on London Underground

Harry Potter star Emma Watson has dashed around the London Underground to hide books for passengers.

The actor dropped off copies of Maya Angelou's Mom & Me & Mom, the November pick for her online book club Our Shared Self.

The star left the novels as part of the Books On The Underground movement, which sees "book fairies" leave their favourite reads for people to enjoy.

Watson left about 100 books with some including a hand-written note.

In it, she wrote that she hoped the reader would enjoy the book, and urged them to leave it on the Tube afterwards for others to find.

'Too fabulous'

One Twitter user, @safaf_96, said she felt like Charlie Bucket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when she found a book while @siannusmaximus wrote: "The book fairies get a book wizard. Too fabulous for words."

Cordelia Oxley, director of Books on the Underground, said: "We were delighted to have Emma Watson share the latest Our Shared Shelf book club choice, and she even wrote a lovely note to go inside the books. It was Emma's idea to be a Book Fairy for the day!

"The reaction has been phenomenal. It must be a mixture of how much everyone adores Emma, and how exciting it is to find something as wonderful as a new book on your journey."

Watson, who was appointed UN women goodwill ambassador in July 2014, started her book club earlier this year.

Books on the Underground started in 2012 and leave about 150 books in stations across London each week.

Alice Newton was just 8 years old when she convinced her publisher father to give Harry Potter his big break.

London: Alice Newton was just 8 years old when she gave Harry Potter his big break. Her publisher father asked her to read the first book in J.K. Rowling's Hogwarts series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, to test its appeal.

"I let Alice read for me and she came down in an hour later glowing about how wonderful this book was," recollects Nigel Newton, who is also chief executive of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. "I think it is now a classic like Winnie the Pooh or (the books of) Roald Dahl or C.S. Lewis, and it will go on," he said on Friday.

The franchise accounted for over 7 percent of Bloomsbury's first-half sales. With a new play, a book of the script and a spin-off film "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" opening in November, Bloomsbury expects Pottermania to be a "big contributor" in the second half of its year ending February 2017.

Newton said an illustrated version of the second Potter book, released on Oct. 4, had sold more copies in its first week than the illustrated version of the first book had in its first week on the stands a year ago.

In-house broker Investec forecasts full-year sales of 133.7 million pounds and pretax profit of 11.8 million pounds for Bloomsbury.

Bloomsbury plans to mark the franchise's 20-year anniversary next July with four special editions of the first Potter book with artwork from each of the houses in Hogwarts, Newton said. It also plans an illustrated version of the Fantastic Beasts book in 2017.

He added that Bloomsbury was in talks with Rowling over potential future books, but declined to say when and if any future work would materialise.

Newton said Bloomsbury had increased prices of some of its academic titles in August as the pound slid after Britain's vote to leave the European Union, but did not specify whether the price of the recently-released Potter book had been raised too.

He said Bloomsbury could absorb any sterling impact over the short term because more than quarter of its sales are in the United States.