Winding her way through a forest of dead trees that have become books, Kristen Stewart is on the hunt for her next read, having just devoured Alberto Moravia’s Contempt: “I loved it. Funny though, the movie is a comedy, but the book is so down.” In black Keds, black skinny jeans, a dark hoodie, and a well-worn green tee, Stewart could pass for one of the literary hipsters working in this cozy Sunset Boulevard bookstore.

She runs a finger along the countless spines of potential suitors lining the tall, dark shelves – a tight maze of plot twists and turns – and stops at John Steinbeck. “East of Eden is my favorite, it’s big, and then Cannery Row. I’ve read them all.” Nestled next to Steinbeck is William Styron. “Have you ever read Lie Down in Darkness?” Stewart asks excitedly. “I want to play Peyton more than anything I can possibly taste or touch in my life. I want to play her so bad.” Peyton is bright, beautiful, suicidal narcissist, preyed upon by her father. But Stewart, 22, sees it as more complicated than that. “Oh, dude, she fuckin’ loves it! She’s in love with him. I mean, I think she’s in love with him. It’s not his fault. They’re the most fucked-up family!”

“There’s a script adaptation I’ve read and it’s good,” she says, continuing down the aisle. “Two people vying for the part [of the father] are Daniel Day-Lewis and Colin Firth. Daniel would be perfect.”Stewart stops suddenly and smiles, picking up an autobiography. “Let’s not be pretentious – let’s buy Snooki.” (She doesn’t.)

Rounding a corner, Stewart taps Jeffery Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides. “I fucking love that movie so much. I love teenage girls.” To say that they love her back would be a gross understatement. Stewart’s embodiment of Bella Swan in the billion-dollar Twilight franchise has made her the object of Bellamania, an obsessive condition afflicting teenage girls and, according to the star, middle-aged women. In other words, every female who’s ever felt the breathless exhilaration of unguarded, mad, sexually-charged 4-ever love with a beautiful, mysterious, intense, withholding boy who turns out to be a bloodsucking vampire on a limited diet with a dysfunctional family and wolves howling at his door, and who requires that you give up everything to be with him. Been there. Done that. Read the books. Saw the movies.

“Oooh, Martin Amis.” Stewart plucks Money from the shelf. “My copy just got soaked – my toilet overflowed.” And then, “Oh my God, my fucking boyfriend just did this movie,” she says, referring to Robert Pattinson while pulling down a copy of Bel Ami. “The French, they’re up in arms that he did it.”

The actress met the British actor in 2007 during a chemistry test of sorts. She was already cast in Twilight, but the role of her vampire love interest – the eternal teen Edward Cullen – was still up for grabs. Director Catherine Hardwicke narrowed it down to four actors. “Every two hours, I had another guy come over to my house,” Hardwicke recalls. “Rob and Kristen sat down at the table and did the biology scene. I felt the sparks. I could see the attraction. Kristen was very vocal – she knew she had the strongest connection with Rob. I said ‘Let me have a day to see if it translates to screen.’” Hardwicke laughs. “I warned him. ‘She’s under age, don’t even think about it! It’s a law in our country.’’

Stewart’s private life is a no-fly zone. She’s known to shoot down inquiries with a death-beam stare and vaporizing replies. What’s there to say, anyway? It is whatever it is. The irony being that for all the alchemy she conjures with Pattinson on screen, there’s an underlying disconnect. Maybe it’s the bizarre Bella brown contact lenses obscuring Stewart’s sage green eyes. (“It’s like I always have sunglasses on – soulless, googly-eyed sunglasses. You can’t feel your eyeballs. They ruined me.”) Or a subconscious refusal to lay bare her personal life for public consumption.

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