Monday Hunk Who Reads – Johnny Depp

By alotofmillion (Photo by Anna Altheide.) (Johnny Depp) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

 Johnny Depp

Since I had to pull down earlier posts to work out copyright issues, and since there’s new book-hunky news about Depp, I’ve pulled up this original post and update it to the new format at the same time.

There’s several pictures of him reading floating around. Here’s a blogger who’s posted several, though some are stills from movies. In the course of doing that I came across this blog: Johnny Depp Reads.

I have been a long-time fan of Depp’s from back when he did Cry-Baby and Edward Scissorhands. He always seemed to pick interesting and quirky films to do and I loved it. It’s obvious he has a brain and that’s sexy. He’s also a book collector, can he get any more sexier people?

Last year, this article asked what he was reading, and at the time it was Dylan Thomas’s poetry and Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry, and re-reading James Joyce’s Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. He’s been spotted reading: Caroline Alexander’s The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty, Tom Robbins’ Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, and Keith Richards’ autobiography Life.

This article on his book collecting gives a peek at his love of books and says that he started collecting books back in 1991 when visiting Jack Kerouac’s hometown. He mainly collects modern first editions, especially beat writers and poets. He relates this wonderful moment:

One of the most incredible moments I’ve ever had was sitting in Vincent’s trailer . . . I was showing him this first-edition book I have of the complete works of [Edgar Allan Poe], with really amazing illustrations. Vincent was going nuts over the drawings, and he started talking about The Tomb of Ligeia (1964). Then he closed the book and began to recite it to me in this beautiful voice, filling the room with huge sounds. Such passion! I looked in the book later, and it was verbatim. Word perfect. It was a great moment. I’ll never forget that.

In September he spoke at a reading for Damien Echols, one of the West Memphis Three, at Echols’ booksigning for his autobiography Life After Death.

Last month he joined Julia Roberts and Reese Witherspoon in collaborating with a Swedish production company to bring classic literature to TV.

Last month he also launched his own imprint at HarperCollins called Infinitum Nihil.  His line of books will feature books that reflect the actor’s “diverse interests and passions” … from both “celebrated and unsung” writers.

“I pledge, on behalf of Infinitum Nihil, that we will do our best to deliver publications worthy of peoples’ time, of peoples’ concern,” Depp said in a statement. “Publications that might ordinarily never have breached the parapet. For this dream realized, we would like to salute HarperCollins for their faith in us and look forward to a long and fruitful relationship together.”

A day later his first book was announced on Publisher’s Marketplace:

Folk singer Woody Guthrie’s only fully realized novel, HOUSE OF EARTH, the portrait of two hardscrabble farmers struggling to survive in the Texas Panhandle during the Dust Bowl, completed in 1947 but available only now, with an introduction by Douglas Brinkley and Johnny Depp, to Michael Signorelli for Infinitum Nihil, by Nora Guthrie at Woody Guthrie Publications. UK rights to David Roth-Ey at Fourth Estate.

And if that’s not enough to convince you, guess how Depp wooed literature-loving actress Amber Heard when she asked for the new couple to cool things off from their summer romance? Every day in September, he wrote her an original poem accompanied by a bouquet of flowers!

I think he deserves the Ovaries Exploding Award, don’t you?

So that’s this month’s Hunk Who Reads. If you like these articles, please comment. They’re fun to write, but are time-consuming 🙂 — on that note, if you run across any photos of hunks reading, please let me know. If you know of an intellectual hunk you’d like to see profiled, let me know that too.Reading is sexy people!

For further opportunities to idolize men and books:

Do you have any photos of male celebrities reading?

Come back on the first Mondays of each month to see the next Hunk Who Reads…

Past Hunks Who Read/Related Articles:

*previous Ovaries Exploding Award winner

38 Replies to “Monday Hunk Who Reads – Johnny Depp”

  1. Some examples: his late friend and comrade Hunter S. Thompson’s work The Rum Diary, Secret Window, and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas were done masterfully and all stemmed from some of his personal favorite books. And his friend, writer Nick Tosches whom he still wants to get the book In the Hand of Dante to the screen . As well as inscribing a beautiful quote into my friend Alexandria Altman’s The Notebook/Twilightesque book Cinderella Chronicles whom she hopes will play her Immortal Prince one day.

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