My life in books

ACTRESS DENISE GOUGH ON THE BOOKS THAT SHAPED HER LIFE

Actress Denise Gough on the books that shaped her

The Magic Faraway Tree

by Enid Blyton

This was my introduction to books: when I was about seven, I read it over and over. Growing up, reading was really encouraged [by my parents] – I found it pure escapism. My mum wanted me to read all the classics, and would buy them by collecting milk bottles to exchange for book tokens. To this day, she gives her 11 kids – I’m number seven – books for Christmas, usually that year’s Booker Prize winner.

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

I read this when I was 12 and wanted to know about periods and boobs. Blume also wrote Forever…, which is about a young couple having sex for the first time. My mother went through the roof when she knew I was reading it. I grew up in the west of Ireland where I was taught by nuns, so Blume was my sex education, and I’m very grateful to her for that.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

It’s a beast of a book, but I read it in three weeks on a yoga retreat in India. I had to keep leaving the beach because I was sobbing. It is one of the best books I’ve read in recent years, but it is so harrowing. I didn’t realise that it was by a woman at first; the male friendships in it are so nuanced. ‘I GREW UP IN THE WEST OF IRELAND WHERE I WAS TAUGHT BY NUNS, SO JUDY BLUME WAS MY SEX EDUCATION. I’M VERY GRATEFUL TO

HER FOR THAT’

The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship by Don Miguel Ruiz

This book is about relationships and how not to fuck yourself up when you’re in one. It’s really beautiful; the author has written all these wonderful books about Toltec wisdom, an ancient Mexican way of thinking. They’re spiritual and keep me sane as an actress.

I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can by Barbara Gordon

This memoir is about Emmy Award-winning documentary producer Barbara Gordon and her addiction to Valium. In a new production I’m doing, Angels in America, I play a Valium addict, so I’ve been reading this book for research. I’m learning about the grip that it has on you within a relatively short amount of time, and also how it was prescribed for everything in the Eighties. It really destroyed people’s lives. It was prescribed for people who had a bit of anxiety and, suddenly, they were hooked on this really powerful drug, and nobody knew how to get them off it.

Machinal by Sophie Treadwell

I find play scripts difficult to read, which is bizarre seeing as it’s what I do for a living. I can only make it come alive once I’ve got a part and I can read it from the point of view of one character. We performed Machinal [about a murderous love triangle in the Twenties] at drama school, and I saw actress Fiona Shaw on the cover of the script book and thought, ‘Well, she’s Irish, so maybe that’s my part.’

And it was!