Richard E Grant’s essential reading list
The litany of roles that glitter Richard E Grant’s CV may not immediately spring to mind when considering your favourite actor.
But a perusal across his filmography reveals a grade-A gallery of expert character performances flashing a show reel many actors would kill for. For many, Grant will always be defined by the immortal Withnail from cult black comedy Withnail and I, about as perfect a cinematic debut there can be via his aggrandising and very unemployed alcoholic thespian.
Elsewhere, Grant keenly zigzags across a gamut of intriguingly eclectic work, be it his eerie turn as the asylum overseer in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the tragic aristocrat Sir James Catton in Saltburn’s class excoriation, and jumping into space opera fantasy as a high-ranking officer of the evil empire in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
He’s also an author. Following the tragic news of his wife’s, acclaimed dialect coach Joan Washington, diagnosis of terminal lung cancer in December 2020, Grant began recording diary entries marking the days he had left with his partner of nearly 35 years, and the surreal nature of grief for 2022’s A Pocketful of Happiness memoir. An intimate snapshot of the strange ways positivity can be gleaned amid the private turmoil, it turns out Grant’s voracious reading list played an essential role in how he was able to articulate such complex insights on the page.
For a recent Gentleman’s Journal piece, Grant gave a glimpse into his literary fancies by selecting his eight most favourite books. First, an indulgence in children’s stories. Reaching back to Lewis Carroll’s beloved 19th-century nonsense absurdity, Grant dusts off Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as his most beloved book, confessing to having read the first episode of Alice’s fantasy adventure every year since a child, and praising its “guide to the English Class system, English imagination and sense of humour”. While never plumbing for one particular entry, Grant decides to hoard the entire Famous Five collection from Noddy writer Enid Blyton, crediting her stories for their escapist beckon growing up in colonial Swaziland.
Heading further back, Grant picks out arguably the first novel ever written. Published in 1719, Daniel Defoe’s cast-away classic Robinson Crusoe still pops with page-turning grip for the vintage actor, “It’s the original Desert Island Discs narrative that’s so beguiling as you try to imagine what you would do if stranded and having to totally rely on your own wits and ingenuity.”
Later in his list, Grant highlights F Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise for its romantic capture of America’s Jazz Age, before marking a sharp U-turn into arresting dystopia for Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, confessing to finding the “visceral, violent, sexually charged rollercoaster tale” of delinquent Droog Alex’s sordid thuggery “riveting”.
Away from ultraviolence, Grant eagerly celebrates Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera for its portrayal of unrequited passions against the backdrop of the South American tropics, and comes back full circle to his boyhood love of Blyton’s intrepid gang with Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, “…an adult version of the Famous Five, wherein we follow the stories of a group of university students and as their lives are impacted by a murder. Friendship, loyalty, lust and betrayal interweaved in an incredible narrative.”
Lastly, one final spotlight on pre-Victorian literature prompts Grant to signal out Jane Austen’s immortal Sense and Sensibility, confessing to his fascination with its study class and romantic manoeuvring that still pangs with humour and pertinence centuries later.
Richard E Grant’s essential reading list:
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
- The Famous Five series by Enid Blyton
- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
- This Side of Paradise by F Scott Fitzgerald
- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
- Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
