Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s favourite books of all time
English actor and writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge is one of television’s most essential voices to have emerged in the past decade. Best known for penning and starring in the dark comedy Fleabag and adapting Killing Eve, Waller-Bridge has garnered impressive acclaim.
The actor began her career in theatre before rising to prominence with her one-woman play, Fleabag, which she first performed in 2013. After landing several film and television roles, Waller-Bridge wrote and starred in the well-received sitcom Crashing. Demonstrating an impressive skill for screenwriting, she transformed Fleabag into a television show shortly after, earning widespread success.
Waller-Bridge’s honest portrayal of grief, sexuality and womanhood was a landmark moment in British television history, winning six Primetime Emmy Awards, alongside a host of other accolades. Utilising a unique narrative structure, with protagonist Fleabag often breaking the fourth wall, the show has become essential viewing, particularly for women in their 20s.
As with Killing Eve, Waller-Bridge is unafraid to present her main characters in their full scope, even if that means depicting them as rude, selfish or even violent. Evidently, Waller-Bridge knows how to tell a nuanced tale, and her favourite books reflect this desire to capture human nature in all of its complexity.
One of her essential reads is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, which Waller-Bridge revealed to The New York Times “took my breath away,” adding, “when I discovered Mary Shelley was 19 when she wrote it, my head blew off.” She also recommends The Ginger Man by J.P Donleavy, explaining, “I was horrified yet set alight by the brutal amorality of Sebastian Dangerfield.”
When it comes to unreliable, hard-to-stomach narrators, she highlights Humbert Humbert from Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, explaining how reading the classic novel was “the most unforgettable, uncomfortable relationship I’ve had with a character I can remember.” Additionally, Waller-Bridge liked reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson because “I prefer not to know exactly how I feel about a character.”
Discussing the books that impacted her when she was younger, she selected His Dark Materials by Philip Pulman, stating, “I lived between those pages. I remember the physical ache of wanting to be deep in those worlds.” Waller-Bridge was also influenced by Judy Blume’s Forever, recalling how she received several detentions after she was caught with the “sexy” book, which was banned at her school due to “getting the students all sweaty.”
She added, “Not dissimilarly, years later, I picked up Anaïs Nin’s Little Birds while browsing Waterstones and stood frozen there, entranced, for about an hour until an employee had to remind my flushed face that Waterstones isn’t a library and I had to remind myself that erotic short stories should be read in private.”
Discover Waller-Bridge’s complete list of essential reads below.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s favourite books:
- So the Wind Won’t Blow It All Away by Richard Brautigan
- I Saw Esau: The Schoolchild’s Pocket Book, edited by Iona Opie and Peter Opie
- The Blue Lenses by Daphne du Maurier
- East of Eden by John Steinbeck
- The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
- The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy
- The First Bad Man by Miranda July
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
- His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
- Forever by Judy Blume
- Little Birds by Anaïs Nin
