Cate Blanchett's Reading List

Australian actor and producer. Two-time Academy Award winner known for Elizabeth, Blue Jasmine, Carol, and Tár.

On their bookshelf (2020)

Books visible on Cate Blanchett's bookshelf during an April 2020 TV/media appearance. Compiled by Gal Beckerman for The New York Times. Books extracted by NYT editor from video footage.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Postcapitalism

Paul Mason · Buy on Amazon

"Information technology is killing capitalism as we know it. But this could be a good thing."

Moscow 1937

Karl Schlögel · Buy on Amazon

"A portrait of the Soviet capital at the height of Stalin's reign."

Favorite books (2020)

Favorite books recommended by Cate Blanchett, as compiled by radicalreads.com. Source article: https://radicalreads.com/cate-blanchett-favorite-books/.

Source: radicalreads.com

The Uses of Enchantment

Bruno Bettelheim · Buy on Amazon

"I read this in drama school. It’s an analysis from a psychologist’s perspective of the meaning and power of fairy tales. One example that sticks in my mind is the metaphor of a child going into the forest. Bettelheim makes the point that the structure of this story parallels children’s experiences in life—how you can be frightened but eventually make it through to the other side. One can feel expendable—particularly in this day and age, and especially working in film—and for me, this reinforc..."

The True History of the Kelly Gang

Peter Carey · Buy on Amazon

"Carey is one of my favorite writers. The first book of his I ever read was a collection of short stories called The Fat Man in History . He also wrote Oscar and Lucinda —a beautiful story—which was turned into a film that I made. In Kelly Gang , the narrative voice is so unique. We Australians all know that outlaw Ned Kelly was hung after the famous shoot-out in 1880. But what Carey does is get inside his character’s mind in such an illuminating and heartrending way. And there’s not a trace o..."

Tender Is the Night

F. Scott Fitzgerald · Buy on Amazon

"This novel was handed to me on a silver platter by my husband, who said, “You cannot die without reading this.” I keep coming back to it because it’s so detailed in recording the inner life of Dick Diver, the central character. His yearning—to save his mentally unstable wife, Nicole—just keeps unfolding. That aching is quite destructive but also so understandable. The word I think of with this story is ‘fragile.’ I was utterly struck by the fineness of Fitzgerald’s writing and the timelessnes..."

Voss

Patrick White · Buy on Amazon

"Nobel Prize-winner Patrick White is one of Australia’s great novelists and playwrights. This story is about Voss, a German explorer, and Laura, a young Sydney woman, who meet very awkwardly in a drawing room one hot afternoon. Voss embarks on a trek across Australia and writes her a series of letters, most of which never reach her; at the same time she writes letters he doesn’t receive. It turns out that the act of expressing their true selves in the small, shut-down environment of colonial A..."

Oleanna

David Mamet · Buy on Amazon

"This play represented such a turning point for me as an actor. I’d just come out of drama school and I was playing opposite Geoffrey Rush. I had to leave my own baggage at the door and take on this character who would be understood by some and hated by others. Mamet has taken all the extraneous stuff away and left you with just this searing, polemic essential battle to the death. Geoffrey and I keep saying Oleanna is an inkblot test, because your reaction to it reveals to you your own sense o..."

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

Sogyal Rinpoche · Buy on Amazon

"I’ve been dipping in and out of this book since my early 20s. I completely respond to one of its basic notions—self-responsibility. It’s about preparing for a good death, and I’ve found that in having a child, you’re confronted by your mortality each day as the child grows and blossoms. But every single element in our Western society is a denial of death. We don’t want to think about it, which compounds the terror we feel about it. This book helps one to navigate one’s way through the terror."

Suggest an update?