Books of Brilliance asked Irish actor Cillian Murphy (Inception, The Dark Knight, Breakfast on Pluto, Peaky Blinders) to name his 10 favorite books. Murphy, who won a Best Actor Irish Film and Television Award for playing a young trans woman in Breakfast on Pluto, told Books of Brilliance, “I’m less interested in the good man’s life, I’m more interested in the conflicted man’s life or the contradictory man’s life.” That has applied to his choice of roles as well as his choice of reading. Cillian’s 10 favorite books:
—The Ginger Man, by J.P. Donleavy
—The Butcher Boy, by Patrick McCabe
—The Sportswriter, by Richard Ford
—Jeff in Venice, Death in Varnasi, by Geoff Dyer
—Grief is the Thing with Feathers, by Max Porter
—Eclipse, by John Banville
—”Rabbit” series, by John Updike
—The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
—The Grass Arena, by John Healy
—Appointment in Samarra, by John O’Hara