Book tells of jailed Amanda Knox's 'stubborn naivety'

Amanda Knox is quoted as saying that her days in jail feel like "limbo"

Amanda Knox, the American convicted of murdering a British student in Italy, is quoted as saying in a new book she was "guided for too long by stubborn naivety which created confusion".

In a book recording conversations with an Italian lawmaker, Knox acknowledges she was "not always understandable".

She also talks about her aspirations to become a writer, marry and adopt.

In December, Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison for the 2007 murder and sexual assault of Meredith Kercher.

Her Italian former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, was sentenced to 25 years. A third man, Rudy Guede, was found guilty in a separate trial and given 30 years, although this was cut to 16 on appeal.

All three have maintained their innocence. Knox has appealed against her conviction and faces a hearing on 24 November.

'Inappropriate'

In the book, Take Me With You - Talks with Amanda Knox in Prison, by Rocco Girlanda, the 23-year-old is quoted as saying that her days in jail feel like "limbo" - suspended between her old life and the future.

"You live a little bit between the memory of life the way it was before, your hopes for tomorrow - and trying as hard as you can not to feel like you're in here," she says in one passage.

Knox is quoted as saying she would like to get married but "must also find the right person", and would adopt children rather than giving birth because "there are a lot of kids in this world who have no-one".

Referring to letters she had received in prison, including proposals of marriage, she is quoted as saying: "Everybody tells me, 'You're famous.' And I answer, 'I'm not Angelina Jolie!' How ugly to be famous for this. I would have preferred to be [famous] for something I built, I achieved."

In the released excerpts, Knox is quoted as mentioning Kercher only once - she says that on the day of the discovery of "Meredith's case" she was supposed to go on a trip to a nearby town with Sollecito.

She also discusses her odd behaviour after Kercher's body was found - she was reported to have performed a cartwheel and done the splits while waiting to be questioned by police.

"I know I have not always been understandable, and that I was guided for too long by stubborn naivety which created confusion."

Rocco Girlanda said he had kept diaries of about 20 conversations he had had with Knox

Mr Girlanda, the president of the Italy-USA Foundation, said he had kept diaries of about 20 conversations he had had with Knox since her conviction.

He said he "wanted to know Amanda", and insisted she was different from the "sex, drugs and rock and roll" image depicted by the media.

But a lawyer for the Kercher family called Mr Girlanda's book "inappropriate".

"We certainly don't feel there was a need for this book," Francesco Maresca told the Associated Press, adding that the conversations were not necessarily indicative of Knox's true character.

Kercher's body was found in a pool of blood with her throat cut in the house she shared with Knox in Perugia.

The judges said that on the night of the murder, Knox and Sollecito met at the house, and that Guede was also there. Knox and Kercher started arguing, and Knox joined the two men in attacking and sexually assaulting Kercher while being under the influence of drugs, they added.

Knox and Sollecito then staged a fake break-in to make it look as though Kercher was killed by an intruder, the judges concluded.

Correction: We have corrected a translation error in early versions of this story - which referred to a "stubborn ingenuity" - to "stubborn naivety"