Books from Jennifer Lawrence

Anna Karenina



Jennifer Lawrence
Actress
When she was filming Silver Linings Playbook, J. Law carried Tolstoy's classic around set with her, according to an interview with her director, David O. Russell. Russell revealed that Lawrence was completely engrossed in the book, and was devastated when he ruined the book for her.
Books from Jennifer Lawrence

Welcome to the Monkey House



Jennifer Lawrence
Actress
My biggest irrational fear, is that Zika-virus will be the solution to overpopulation. I don't know if you've ever read Kurt Vonnegut's story, where everybody has to take this pill to make your private parts feel spongeous and then no one can have sex or procreate.
Books from Jennifer Lawrence

The Catcher in the Rye

'If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.'The first of J. D. Salinger's four books to be published, The Catcher in the Rye is one of the most widely read and beloved of all contemporary American novels.'The handbook of the adolescent heart' The New Yorker
Jennifer Lawrence
Actress
I'm so drawn to Salinger's view of society back then, and to his sarcasm. I read Catcher in the Rye first, then this one. I don't think there's ever been anything like these characters in American literature.
Books from Jennifer Lawrence

The Glass Castle

Now a major motion picture starring Brie Larson, Naomi Watts and Woody Harrelson.This is a startling memoir of a successful journalist's journey from the deserted and dusty mining towns of the American Southwest, to an antique filled apartment on Park Avenue. Jeanette Walls narrates her nomadic and adventurous childhood with her dreaming, 'brilliant' but alcoholic parents. At the age of seventeen she escapes on a Greyhound bus to New York with her older sister; her younger siblings follow later. After pursuing the education and civilisation her parents sought to escape, Jeanette eventually succeeds in her quest for the 'mundane, middle class existence' she had always craved. In her apartment, overlooked by 'a portrait of someone else's ancestor' she recounts poignant remembered images of star watching with her father, juxtaposed with recollections of irregular meals, accidents and police-car chases and reveals her complex feelings of shame, guilt, pity and pride toward her parents.
Jennifer Lawrence
Actress
I've always wanted to produce, because I remember when I would read these incredible scripts that would never see the light of day and then I'd drive through Westwood and see some of the crap that was coming out. And I was like, 'What is going on in the world?' So I've always wanted to produce. And 'Glass Castle' being my first project is perfect because I was just so moved by that book," Lawrence said.
Books from Jennifer Lawrence

The Rum Diary

Made into a major motion picture starring Johnny Depp, The Rum Diary—a national bestseller and New York Times Notable Book—is Hunter S. Thompson’s brilliant love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent lust in the Caribbean.Begun in 1959 by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s. The narrator, freelance journalist Paul Kemp, irresistibly drawn to a sexy, mysterious woman, is soon thrust into a world where corruption and get-rich-quick schemes rule, and anything (including murder) is permissible. Exuberant and mad, youthful and energetic, this dazzling comedic romp provides a fictional excursion as riveting and outrageous as Thompson’s Fear and Loathing books.
Jennifer Lawrence
Actress
You can tell in one sentence if what you're reading is by Thompson," Lawrence says of the late journalist's gonzo style. Published in 1998, nearly 40 years after it was begun, this fictionalized memoir—released as a film with Johnny Depp in 2011—contains all the Thompson trademarks: drunken excess; surreal, violent episodes; fascinating, often despicable characters. "You read a Thompson book because of his voice. He's always getting wrecked in San Juan and reporting on cockfights. He's just hilarious."
Books from Jennifer Lawrence

Anna Karenina

"Anna Karenina" ist eine Perfektion . und solche, mit der Nichts Derartiges aus der europäischen Literatur in der gegenwärtigen Epoche sich vergleichen kann, - schrieb Fjodor Dostojewski über den wohl berühmtesten Roman von Leo Tolstoj. Philosophische, ästhetische und ethische Fragen, mit den sich der große russische Schriftsteller auseinandergesetzt hat, drückt er in der tragischen Geschichte einer Familie aus. Das heißt: "Alle glücklichen Familien gleichen einander, jede unglückliche Familie ist auf ihre eigene Weise unglücklich." Dieser erste Satz hat sich als "Anna-Karenina-Prinzip" in der Psychologie bewiesen.
Jennifer Lawrence
Actress
I really wasn't expecting to like it. I thought I wouldn't want to finish an 800-page book, but then I started slowing down and reading the same chapters over and over. You fall in love with the characters; you grow up with them.
Books from Jennifer Lawrence

We Need to Talk About Kevin

That neither nature nor nurture bears exclusive responsibility for a child's character is self-evident. But generalizations about genes are likely to provide cold comfort if it's your own child who just opened fire on his feellow algebra students and whose class photograph—with its unseemly grin—is shown on the evening news coast-to-coast.If the question of who's to blame for teenage atrocity intrigues news-watching voyeurs, it tortures our narrator, Eva Khatchadourian. Two years before the opening of the novel, her son, Kevin, murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and the much-beloved teacher who had tried to befriend him. Because his sixteenth birthday arrived two days after the killings, he received a lenient sentence and is currently in a prison for young offenders in upstate New York.In relating the story of Kevin's upbringing, Eva addresses her estranged husband, Frank, through a series of startingly direct letters. Fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son became, she confesses to a deep, long-standing ambivalence about both motherhood in general—and Kevin in particular. How much is her fault?We Need To Talk About Kevin offers no at explanations for why so many white, well-to-do adolescents—whether in Pearl, Paducah, Springfield, or Littleton—have gone nihilistically off the rails while growing up in the most prosperous country in history. Instead, Lionel Shriver tells a compelling, absorbing, and resonant story with an explosive, haunting ending. She considers motherhood, marriage, family, career—while framing these horrifying tableaus of teenage carnage as metaphors for the larger tragedy of a country where everything works, nobody starves, and anything can be bought but a sense of purpose.
Jennifer Lawrence
Actress
Shriver's haunting novel is not quite horror and not quite thriller, "but it's definitely dramatic," Lawrence says. A mother's story of watching helplessly as her son grows from an angry child into a horrifically violent young man, the book won 2005's Orange Prize for fiction and inspired the recent movie starring Tilda Swinton. "I wouldn't read it if I had kids or if I were pregnant," she warns.
Books from Jennifer Lawrence

The Other Boleyn Girl

Two sisters competing for the greatest prize: the love of a king.A rich and compelling novel of love, sex, ambition, and intrigue, The Other Boleyn Girl introduces a woman of extraordinary determination and desire who lived at the heart of the most exciting and glamorous court in Europe and survived by following her heart.When Mary Boleyn comes to court as an innocent girl of fourteen, she catches the eye of Henry VIII. Dazzled, Mary falls in love with both her golden prince and her growing role as unofficial queen. However, she soon realizes just how much she is a pawn in her family's ambitious plots as the king's interest begins to wane and she is forced to step aside for her best friend and rival: her sister, Anne. Then Mary knows that she must defy her family and her king and take her fate into her own hands.
Jennifer Lawrence
Actress
Gregory is one of my favorite authors," says Lawrence. "I've always loved history, and she makes it...salacious." Narrated by Anne Boleyn's sister Mary—who managed to keep her head—Gregory's best-seller takes a new look at the oft-told story of the loves of Henry VIII and the political and religious intrigues and rivalries that roiled not just life in the English court but the whole of Europe.
Books from Jennifer Lawrence

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour

A haunting portrait of family tragedy from the acclaimed author of The Catcher in the Rye 'He was a great many things to a great many people while he lived, and virtually all things to his brothers and sisters in our somewhat outsized family. Surely he was all real things to us: our blue-striped unicorn, our double-lensed burning glass, our consultant genius, our portable conscience, our supercargo, and our one full poet...' These two novellas, set seventeen years apart, are both concerned with Seymour Glass - the eldest son of J. D. Salinger's fictional Glass family - as recalled by his closest brother, Buddy. 'The Glasses are one of the liveliest, funniest, most fully-realized families in all fiction' The New York Times
Jennifer Lawrence
Actress
When she was 14, Lawrence traveled to New York City to start her career, so Salinger's tales of the quintessential New York family—the brilliant, sophisticated, doomed Glasses—have a special place in her heart. "I'm so drawn to Salinger's view of society back then, and to his sarcasm. I read Catcher in the Rye first, then this one. I don't think there's ever been anything like these characters in American literature."
Books from Jennifer Lawrence

Harry Potter Series

Prepare to be spellbound by Jim Kay's dazzling depiction of the wizarding world and much loved characters in this full-colour illustrated hardback edition of the nation's favourite children's book -Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Brimming with rich detail and humour that perfectly complements J.K. Rowling's timeless classic, Jim Kay's glorious illustrations will captivate fans and new readers alike. When a letter arrives for unhappy but ordinary Harry Potter, a decade-old secret is revealed to him that apparently he's the last to know. His parents were wizards, killed by a Dark Lord's curse when Harry was just a baby, and which he somehow survived. Leaving his unsympathetic aunt and uncle for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry stumbles upon a sinister mystery when he finds a three-headed dog guarding a room on the third floor. Then he hears of a missing stone with astonishing powers, which could be valuable, dangerous - or both. An incredible adventure is about to begin!
Jennifer Lawrence
Actress
Harry Potter. I was so crazy about Harry Potter I read it twice. All of them twice. I didn’t have a favorite, I thought they were all amazing.