Jake Gyllenhaal’s favorite recent reads
Jake Gyllenhaal is an Academy Award- and Tony-nominated actor and producer but for his first picture book Gyllenhaal called on his experience as an uncle to get it right. Written with his pal Greta Caruso (and illustrated by the incomparable Dan Santat), The Secret Society of Aunts & Uncles is a zany, imaginative adventure and ode to the special relationship between kids and their aunts and uncles. We asked Gyllenhaal what books he’s been reading and loving this year and here’s what he had to say.
I’ve always been a Mike Nichols fan—so I thought I knew the gist of his life—but there was so much in Mark Harris’ incredibly deft biography that felt revelatory to me. It’s so easy to think of Nichols’ career as a string of peerless masterpieces, but the truth is that he fumbled his way through things like the rest of us—which of course made the sections about Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, his journey through The Graduate, and his relationship with the incomparable Elaine May, that much sweeter. And man, was it fun to go down a Nichols and May internet rabbit hole. —Jake Gyllenhaal
The Pulitzer Prize committee and I agree on this one: Trust is a wonderful, slippery novel about American wealth, morality, the gears of family fortune, and so much more. It shares a bit of foundational DNA with Edith Wharton—a real plus for all you Wharton-heads out there—but the brilliant structure and guile are all Diaz's own. —Jake Gyllenhaal
I’m a pretty enthusiastic home cook, so I had been meaning to read How to Cook a Wolf by MFK Fisher for a while. (I realize I’m about 80 years late to this particular party, but it’s better late than never, right?) It’s an incredible book: a crystal-clear view into the psychology (and economy) of wartime cooking that’s equal parts history and gastronomy. And man, is her writing strong and graceful. —Jake Gyllenhaal
This big, beautiful Baldwin novel has been my favorite for multiple decades at this point, so I try to reread it every few years and foist it upon anyone who hasn't yet experienced the world of this book. Set mostly in New York—and a bit in France—in the late ‘50s, Baldwin tackles the world of his hometown with his unflinching, poetic prose. —Jake Gyllenhaal
