Exciting news for bookworms and feminists everywhere: Emma Watson has launched an online feminist book club, and she wants everyone to be involved.

The actress, UN ambassador and feminist campaigner decided to call the club "Our Shared Shelf", after asking her Twitter followers to suggest names.

Our Shared Shelf will run as an interactive page on the books site goodreads.com. Watson is, famously, a UN ambassador for the HeForShe campaign, which encourages men to "stand up in addressing inequalities and discrimination faced by women and girls". She said that she was inspired to start a feminist book club after reading about equality as part of her work with the UN.

Writing on the Our Shared Shelf homepage, Watson said: "There is so much amazing stuff out there! Funny, inspiring, sad, thought-provoking, empowering! I’ve been discovering so much that, at times, I’ve felt like my head was about to explode […] I want to share what I’m learning and hear your thoughts too."

Watson plans to choose a book to read every month, then open a public online discussion about the work during the month's last week. Her first selection? Feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem's memoir My Life on the Road, an account of her early years as a journalist and activist. 

At the time of writing, 27857 people had already subscribed to Our Shared Shelf and the discussion board boasted 75 threads, with topics ranging from feminism in India to female autobiographies. 

The Harry Potter star is going to have a busy 2016. As well as her work with the UN, she is playing Belle in a live-action musical version of Beauty and the Beast (opposite Downton Abbey's Dan Stevens as the Beast), and will star alongside Tom Hanks in an adaptation of Dave Eggers' novel The Circle. 

Watson hopes that authors and other prominent feminist voices will also join the conversation on Our Shared Shelf. Somehow, we can't see anyone turning that offer down. 

Photo: Rex Features

Read more: the 25 books every woman should read, by Lisa Simpson. (Yes, that Lisa Simpson.)