Scottish actor Alan Cumming rose to fame on West End stages, turning in sensational performances in Hamlet, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, and Bent. On Broadway, he was awarded a Tony for his star-making turn as Cabaret’s Master of Ceremonies, and received extensive praise for his one-man adaptation of Macbeth.
Cumming’s screen roles have ranged from art house to blockbuster, with iconic parts in Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, GoldenEye, Son of the Mask, Doctor Who, and the Spy Kids trilogy. For his scene-stealing portrayal of Eli Gold on CBS’s long-running courtroom drama The Good Wife, he was nominated for three Emmys, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Golden Globes and a Satellite Award.
As an author, Cumming has published several children’s books, a novel, Tommy’s Tale, the bestselling autobiography Not My Father’s Son, and a topical memoir, Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life. A true multihyphenate, he also owns the cabaret bar Club Cumming in New York, performs in concert halls around the world, runs an award-winning perfume line, and hosts the podcast Shelves, an interview series delving into the artifacts and oddities of our lives.
In a reading list for NY-based bookstore One Grand, the actor and queer icon shared ten books that have most inspired his life and work. From Alasdair Gray’s Scottish epic to Enid Blyton’s timeless adventure stories, find his favorites below.
Alan Cumming’s Reading List
The Trick Is To Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway
“This is like a Scottish Catcher in the Rye. You actually feel you’re inside this woman’s head, it is that visceral. And having experienced a downward spiral myself, I so admire her accuracy in every detail.” -AC
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
“Again, it’s all about the visceral! She understands yearning like no one else. And also, I love a good historic European romp.” -AC
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (also rec’d by Elena Ferrante)
“Margaret Atwood is so clever and brilliant, just reading her book and keeping up with it made me feel like a genius. But to engage a reader emotionally over so many different storylines is awe-inspiring.” -AC
Christopher and His Kind by Christopher Isherwood
“This is the unedited and unadulterated version of the stories that made up Isherwood’s books Goodbye To Berlin and Mr Norris Changes Trains, which were the source material for the play ‘I Am a Camera’ and later the musical ‘Cabaret.’ I find it fascinating that Isherwood still writes about himself in the third person. An interesting literary device, yet it feels like a smokescreen and leaves you wondering how much more there is to tell.” -AC
Lanark: A Life in Four Books by Alasdair Gray
“This is an epic modern Scottish classic. Gray is a renowned artist as well as author, and here he paints a dystopian Glasgow that is mesmerizing and terrifying in equal measures.” -AC
Close Up by John Fraser
“This is a beautifully written memoir that is completely frank and fascinating about life in the ’60s as an up-and-coming matinee idol who just happens to be gay.” -AC
Maggie and Me by Damian Barr
“Margaret Thatcher loomed over my youth, and so she did with Damian Barr’s, though more pointedly and intricately woven in his. This is harrowing family saga but written with an abundance of wit and tenderness.” -AC
The Beautiful Room Is Empty by Edmund White
“I found this book so educational in terms of what it must have been like to grow up in America, discovering you need to harbor a secret. And the yearning in these pages is so palpable.” -AC
Five on a Treasure Island by Enid Blyton
“I grew up reading the ‘Famous Five’ books, and recently I reread the first one and was shocked to realize it contains the first trans person I ever encountered, and also how much its almost fetishistic description of food had everything to do with the rationing that Britain was ensuring at the time. Lashings and lashings of ginger beer!” -AC
After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie by Jean Rhys
“This is the story of a woman who has been discarded and who will not go down gently. If ever there was an unsung heroine of feminist literature, it is the amazing Jean Rhys.” -AC
(via One Grand Books)