(Bloomberg) -- Rishi Sunak, who’s made a virtue of being a strait-laced and sensible contrast to his immediate two predecessors as UK prime minister, admitted to a racier side on Thursday: his taste in literature.

The premier confessed to having a weakness for a series of bestselling erotic novels — or “bonkbusters” in British parlance — by UK author Jilly Cooper. In an interview with the ITV daytime magazine show This Morning, he listed Rivals, Polo, The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous and Appassionata as the “set of books I like.”

“They are good! You need to have escapism in your life,” a laughing Sunak said. “It’s good to be able to get away from your day to day and go into a totally different place, whether it’s the TV you watch or the books you read.”

The series known as the Rutshire Chronicles starts with Riders, famous for its front cover featuring a male hand on a jodhpurs-clad female buttock. The novels are set in a fictionalized upper-class world based on the Cotswold countryside and other high-end destinations and feature a glamorous, rich set of show-jumpers, polo players, TV personalities and rock stars. 

A central character is the handsome lothario Rupert Campbell-Black, whose sexual adventures cross several titles. Disney+ announced last year it is adapting the 1988 novel Rivals into an eight-part screen series. The book examines the battle for control of independent television franchises in 1986, with Cooper’s characteristic sexual flourishes. 

Sunak also revealed he likes playing with Lego and the Top Trumps card game with his two daughters. He added that DIY “is not my strong point. You do not want me anywhere near that.”

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