A collection of Stephen Fry’s favourite books
Stephen Fry is a name that warms the hearts of millions in the British Isles and beyond. First finding fame as one half of the Cambridge University sketch act Fry and Laurie, alongside House hero Hugh Laurie, Fry soon traversed the spectacle of television to become one of the nation’s most dearly beloved TV personalities as he took on the role of host of QI one of the BBC’s most widely adored quiz shows.
Though Fry took many turns in front of the camera, acting as Jeeves from Jeeves and Wooster as well as a recurring role in Blackadder, he soon found a passion for filmmaking and took his seat in the director’s chair. But, perhaps a little churlishly and owing to his superior breadth of knowledge and his visceral wit, the area of art that people most keenly link with Fry is books.
As one of the founding members of the audiobook phenomenon, Fry’s lilting British accent has become the narrator for many a classic book, including perhaps his most famous outing as the narrator for the Harry Potter series. Add to this his vast areas of knowledge, his unimpeachable education and his desire to engage in fairly-sided debate and the image of ‘Stephen Fry: The Renaissance Man’ is one that is hard to shake. It means when we came across a list of his favourite books of all time, we knew we had to share it and celebrate the man behind the words.
What better place to the start than the book Fry often cites as the title that influenced his life most of all: “[Malcolm Lowry’s] Under the Volcano, oddly enough, although it’s a kind of bleak book and a warning about the kind of person I don’t want to be. It’s an intense book like Ulysses, another favourite book, that takes place all in one day. The author is Malcolm Lowry, a Canadian-British author — it’s about a drunken console on the day of death in Mexico. That’s something about it I find hypnotically magnificent, and I go back and re-read it a lot.”
When asked by Shelterbox for his favourite book by a non-western author, Fry was quick to look to the growing icon of Haruki Murakami’s book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles: “Insanely enjoyable, with some emphasis on the “insanely” there’s a demented quality to the surreal and twisted nature of so much that goes on in it…. so many scenes stay with you forever, a bit like the euphoric flashbacks from an acid trip (so they tell me).”
Elsewhere, Fry once referred to Ricky Jay’s book Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women as a “masterpiece” and even laid down a hefty bet about David Eagleman’s Sum: “You will not read a more dazzling book this year than David Eagleman’s Sum. If you read it and aren’t enchanted, I will eat 40 hats.” Fry also once picked out “two of the most underestimated” novels of all time, citing Stefan Zweig’s Beware of Pretty, which he calls “an extraordinary book”, and The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford, which he believes will “astound” whoever reads it.
It’s not just fiction that Fry has recommended over the years; upon hearing of the passing of Ursula Le Guin’s passing, he wrote: “Sorry to hear that Ursula Le Guin has died. She was one of the greats. Words Are My Matter is my favourite book on the subject of writing itself.”
Like any bibliophile, there is a high chance that a list of Stephen Fry’s books, much like the painting of the Forth bridge, is never complete. It’s an easy assumption that Fry would add and subtract from a list at every turn if he was given a chance. However, there is no doubt that below are some of the titles he considers untouchable.
Stephen Fry’s favourite books:
- Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
- Ulysses – James Joyce
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
- Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women – Ricky Jay
- Beware of Pretty – Stefan Zweig
- The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
- Words Are My Matter – Ursula Le Guin
