Tilda Swinton's Reading List
Loaded with film and fashion photos, the museum catalog also includes commentary by many of her steady collaborators. In an email interview, she praised P.G. Wodehouse and Muriel Spark. SCOTT HELLER
Open in WellRead Daily app →By the Book: Tilda Swinton (2026)
NYT By the Book column (2026-01-08).
Source: www.nytimes.com
Richard Scarry · Buy on Amazon
"I've yet to find a city I prefer — outright — to Busytown."
Olivia Laing · Buy on Amazon
"A portrait of a certain kind of renegade filmmaking life that some of us recognize as timelessly familiar."
Virginia Woolf · Buy on Amazon
"It's a magic mirror of a book, which I first tucked under my pillow when I was 15 and which, somehow, reliably keeps reflecting back each phase of life at me, leaf by leaf."
Georges Rodenbach · Buy on Amazon
"David Bowie introduced me to Georges Rodenbach's "Bruges-la-Morte," all goose-bumps and intense melancholy, for which I am very grateful once a year when I reread it."
Floc'h · Buy on Amazon
"This is a book that we might do well to issue with each birth certificate: a primer to living a fully responsive and happy life."
Favorite books (2023)
Favorite books recommended by Tilda Swinton, as compiled by radicalreads.com. Source article: https://radicalreads.com/tilda-swinton-favorite-books/.
Source: radicalreads.com
John Berger · Buy on Amazon
"A reflection by one great lens-grinding thinker and revolutionary humanist on another: John Berger — our contemporary — writes on Benedict Spinoza, the 17th-century philosopher so influential for the Enlightenment. But he also writes on drawing, on living, on life and on living life now. For those not familiar with one or both, this is a great introduction to the company of two seminal souls."
Douglas Botting · Buy on Amazon
"For good measure, and because of its brilliance, I include Douglas Botting’s biography of Maxwell, as the Germans say, “in partnerlook.” An immersive portrait of a fascinating and haunting man, traveler, naturalist, shark fisherman, art historian, bon viveur, classical romantic adventurer and tragic hero of his own high drama. A great life story, written by a friend, of a life lived with legendary vigor, idealistic courage and a heartbreaking undertow."
Mahmoud Darwish · Buy on Amazon
"Darwish, Palestinian poet of the Resistance, writes like breath. His passion for the essence of homeland is universal as well as painfully particular. A true master, a poet and a heart for the ages."
Patrick Dennis · Buy on Amazon
"Swinton has been hoping for a film adaptation of this classic novel since 2016."
Charles Dickens · Buy on Amazon
"Faces you will never forget, and a lesson to treasure all your life: Be prepared to be surprised, [and] cherish life as it finds you. And love Joe Gargery with all your heart."
Patrick Leigh Fermor · Buy on Amazon
"For anybody who has ever fantasized about walking across Europe with a backpack. Written by a great writer and a proper hero amongst men."
F. Scott Fitzgerald · Buy on Amazon
Floc'h · Buy on Amazon
"A succinct and comprehensive guide for living made up of irreducible bite-size wisdoms, exquisitely illustrated. From ‘Live the seasons’ through ‘Lose time in chatting’ and ‘Don’t be afraid to get wet,’ to the unassailable ‘Go from time to time to Scotland,’ there can be no better pocket of counsel for any of us at any age."
Alex Garland · Buy on Amazon
Steven Hall · Buy on Amazon
"Swinton read a mesmerizing passage to help promote the book. Listen here."
Michael Hastings · Buy on Amazon
Derek Jarman · Buy on Amazon
"Joy and life, and more life and more joy, and making a garden out of stones, and making films, and love."
Robert A. Johnson · Buy on Amazon
"A tiny, precious book on the balancing wisdom of the psyche. Hooray for that dark stuff!"
Walter Kirn · Buy on Amazon
Tedd Kessler · Buy on Amazon
"Swinton performed a reading from the book at the 2017 Dhaka Lit Fest. Watch here."
Norman MacCaig · Buy on Amazon
"Scotland’s preeminent poet of both the mountain and the capital’s pavement. Doubleness is a Scottish art: Passion and Calvinism; the west and the east; the highlands and the lowlands. MacCaig embraces this split with true affection and verve. (See also: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.)"
Sorley MacLean · Buy on Amazon
"If these English translations are this beautiful, we can only dream of how exquisite the Gaelic originals might be. [MacLean is] Scotland’s preeminent poet of the islands."
Gavin Maxwell · Buy on Amazon
"One of the greatest Scottish writers, probably the most affecting prose witness to the unique spirit of the Highland wilderness there has ever been. This book, chronicling life lived with otters on the remote west coast of Scotland, was made into a classic children’s film by Disney in the ’60s, but the book has depths and breadth untapped by the movie. Our Walden of the Hebrides. Beautiful."
Herman Melville (also rec’d by Bob Dylan , Bruce Springsteen , Patti Smith & Steve Jobs ) · Buy on Amazon
"Swinton read the first chapter of Moby Dick as part of the Moby Dick Big Read, a project bringing the classic to the masses through readings by famous personalities. Listen on Soundcloud."
Nancy Mitford · Buy on Amazon
"Lady Montdore is one of the greatest creations in English literature; Uncle Matthew, another; Cedric, yet another. It’s the dottiness and passions of the English aristocracy pretty much nailed in one."
Michel de Montaigne · Buy on Amazon
"This book should, in my humble opinion, replace Gideon in hotel bedside tables the world over. An examination of what it means to be alive, an essay for every possible constituent part of the human experience, built upon the endearing and radically joyous motto ‘What do I know?’ An uplifting and companionable fellow traveler for us all. A timely reminder of how toxic doubtlessness can be. Straight from the 16th century into the now. Forever and ever."
Brian Moore · Buy on Amazon
Rumi · Buy on Amazon
"Swinton performed a reading of ‘Like This’ to celebrate the launch of her perfume collaboration with Etat Libre d’Orange. Listen here ."
James Salter · Buy on Amazon
"An urbane American marriage seen from above — a kind of exquisite horror story of the deathly chic of people having all their bases covered and somehow missing the point all the same. Very, very beautiful. Very, very sad."
Lionel Shriver (also rec’d by John Waters ) · Buy on Amazon
Robert Louis Stevenson · Buy on Amazon
Alexander Trocchi · Buy on Amazon
P.G. Wodehouse · Buy on Amazon
"Sentences to eat with a spoon, and funny like nothing else on Earth."
Virginia Woolf · Buy on Amazon
"Like Orlando, I wrote poetry. In my adolescent fantasy I read this book and believed it was a hallucinogenic, interactive biography of my own life and future. For me, this trifle of phantasmagoria has always been a practical manual. A tourist guide to human experience, the best of wise companions. At least, it was my first: a message in a bottle from an imaginary friend."