Griffin Dunne reads about filmmaking and warfare

In his new memoir, “The Friday Afternoon Club,” actor and producer Griffin Dunne describes growing up in a family of literary stars and Hollywood heavyweights. His father, Dominick Dunne, was a producer who then became a famous crime journalist. His aunt and uncle were writers Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne. Still, family is family, with its ups and downs, and fame doesn’t protect anyone from heartbreak, as Dunne’s book makes clear. As an actor, Dunne is best known for his leading role in “After Hours.” He has produced and directed many projects, including “Practical Magic” and the Didion documentary “The Center Will Not Hold.” Dunne lives in Manhattan’s East Village.

BOOKS: Which books do you pack for your reading tour?

DUNNE: “The Situation Room” by George Stephanopoulos, which I find fascinating. It’s about every president from Eisenhower to today and their relationship to the Situation Room. I’m doing an event with Nicole Avant, so I have her “Think You’ll Be Happy.” It’s a memoir of her father, legendary producer Clarence Avant, and her mother, who was murdered. It will be interesting to read a book by someone who has suffered a sudden loss like I did.

BOOKS: Are you a fan of Hollywood memoirs?

DUNNE: I like books by filmmakers, like Eli Kazan’s A Life and Sidney Lumet’s Making Movies, one of the most perfect books on directing, but I haven’t read the more sensational memoirs. I read David Niven’s The Moon’s a Balloon because it was my mother’s favorite book. Despite my dyslexia, it was easy to digest.

BOOKS: How has dyslexia affected your relationship with reading?

DUNNE: When I was diagnosed, the subtext was that I was probably stupid. I had to take a year off school and experience every humiliation that could be inflicted on me. That made reading too much for me. When I was kicked out of school and had no teachers, no grades, no SATs, it was like a cloudburst. I came to New York, where my first friends were all writers and very well-read. I felt like I had to make up for lost time, and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. I read a lot more than I watch TV or movies.

BOOKS: What was it like when you discovered that you could read books?

DUNNE: It was like tasting water for the first time. I went to the New York Public Library, borrowed a book someone had mentioned at a dinner party, and read it in the Map Room.

BOOKS: Have you read your aunt and uncle’s books?

DUNNE: Certainly my uncle’s. John wrote the way he spoke. He was an author I was able to read from a very early age. I couldn’t make sense of Joan’s “Slouching Towards Bethlehem.” It seemed too intellectual.

BOOKS: How would you describe your current reading?

DUNNE: I like reading about the World Wars, but really any war. I like books like FDR’s Funeral Train by Robert Klara, a fascinating account of the logistics of transporting FDR’s body. It was at the end of the war when the Germans were fighting fiercely, and every member of FDR’s government, as well as Russian and German spies, were on that train. I like stories about life during the war, like The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson, which is about people who lived through the Blitz in London. Now I’m reading Larson’s The Demon of Unrest, a very good book about Fort Sumter during the Civil War. There you have it. Me and the war.

BOOKS: Do you have an absolute favorite book about the war?

DUNNE: I love Adam Hochschild’s American Midnight, which is about the years before World War I. I also read a bit of Nazi literature from time to time, like Peter Longerich’s great biography of Goebbels, this cultured gentleman who loved art and planned mass murder.

BOOKS: Does reading this sometimes seem depressing to you?

DUNNE: Then I’ll get a David Sedaris and laugh my ass off.

BOOKS: Do you have any favorite war novels?

DUNNE: David Benioff, co-creator of Game of Thrones, wrote City of Thieves, a great novel set during the siege of Leningrad. Symphony for the City of the Dead by MT Anderson is a great non-fiction book about the siege and the symphony that Shostakovich wrote to inspire the Russians who were living in the most inhumane conditions. I read a lot about Leningrad. I have to go to Sedaris.

Follow us on Facebook or Twitter @GlobeBiblio. Amy Sutherland is the author of “Saving Penny Jane” and she can be reached at [email protected].