3 Books That Made a Difference to Gabriel Byrne

The In Treatment actor and star of the new History Channel series Vikings has a love of reading that can be traced back to his childhood in Ireland.

Photo: Philip Friedman/Studio D

Great Expectations
By Charles Dickens

My mother was a big reader, especially of Dickens, and she read to us from his novels at nighttime, so at a very early age I was introduced to characters like Miss Havisham and Pip. They awoke in me a curiosity about the world of books, even though I couldn't really read myself at that time.

Photo: Philip Friedman/Studio D

The Wind in the Willows
By Kenneth Grahame

By the time I started school, I had fallen in love with the whole act of being able to read, and this was the first book I read by myself from cover to cover. I have reread it 15 or 20 times since, and it's never lost its magic. I've changed a great deal over time, yet the book seems to be as wise as it ever was.

Photo: Philip Friedman/Studio D

Tigers in Red Weather
By Liza Klaussmann

This novel is a page-turner in that you can't wait to see what happens next, yet you have to put it down from time to time to think about and savor what you've just read. It's written from the point of view of five characters, and at its center is a very unsettling mystery—it stays with you long after you've read it.

Next: Books that made a difference to Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence

From the April 2013 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine