Best books… Ethan Hawke
Actor and writer Ethan Hawke picks his six favourite books. His graphic novel, Indeh: A Story of the Apache Wars, has just been published by Grand Central, and his new film, The Magnificent Seven, is in cinemas
Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, 2005 (W&N £8.99). Boyden’s powerful tale of two Cree Indians who serve as snipers during WWI. I read the book in one sitting; literally could not put it down. It is a punch to the gut – an absolutely brilliant novel, but not for the faint of heart.
Collected Essex County by Jeff Lemire, 2009 (out of print). This is my favourite graphic novel. The Essex County stories, which follow three generations of an Ontario farming family, helped me understand that the possibilities of the graphic novel reach beyond anything I had ever imagined. Simple, touching and funny.
The Good Lord Bird by James Mcbride, 2013 (Riverhead £12.99). Set in the lead-up to the American Civil War, Mcbride’s irreverent novel tells the story of white abolitionist John Brown as seen though the eyes of ex-slave boy Henry Shackleford, who – disguised as a girl – crosses the Midwest with the Bible-spouting activist. Funny and deeply human: Mark Twain can kiss James Mcbride’s ass.
Once They Moved Like the Wind: Cochise, Geronimo and the Apache Wars by David Roberts, 1993 (Pimlico £16.99). Indeh would have been impossible to write without the brilliant research and writing that poured into this history of the Apache wars. A must-read for anyone interested in the US southwest.
Just Kids by Patti Smith, 2010 (Bloomsbury £9.99). I had the great pleasure of interviewing Patti Smith at the Tribeca Film Festival. If you have any doubts that she is one of the greatest living American poets, this book will put them to rest.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, 1877 (Penguin £8.99). I read this backstage during a production of Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia, a ninehour epic about 19th century Russian radicals. I read most of it in full period costume. My advice is to recreate these circumstances where possible.