Did Garbo read books? and if so, what books did she read? It is written that her shelves were lined with volumes by Tolstoy, Goethe and Longfellow as well as Emerson, Hawthorne , Thacheray, Wells, Browning, and Dumas. But some friends were never quite sure that Greta read any of them because she never discussed them.

It is written that Garbo read Emily Brontë to Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Cecil Beaton recorded many instances of Greta quoting modern writers such as Joseph Conrad, as well as classical thinkers: Goethe, Heine, Sappho. She was fond of reciting dramatic passages in their original languages.

Garbo reading a screenplay

Garbo was also a frequent reader of German, English and Swedish poets. "She has no set reading habits," her friend George Schlee said years later. "She will read anything suggested by someone she respects. [She] is avid for information [and] likes to be led. Same goes for theater and movies. She will see anything a friend recommends as being particularly good. "
 

Garbo's library

Garbo's library in New York consisted of multiple volumes of Thackeray, Hawthorne, Emerson, Fielding and Hardy, all bound in Morrocan leather and stamped in gold: books for show.

Alan Elsner, proprietor of the First Avenue Bookshop, enjoyed having Garbo as a neighbour, but she was not much of a customer. "She'd drop by every so often for a Swedish newspaper," say Elsner. "She'd plunk down her coins and say, 'That's to keep you in business.' I don't think she ever read anything."
 

Garbo on reading books

Garbo talked with her friend film producer Raymond Daum about this subject which can be found in his 1991 released book Walking with Garbo.

Walking with Garbo by R. Daum
 

On ‘Alice in Wonderland'

I never read ‘Alice in Wonderland'. Did I miss much?

On ‘Gatsby'

‘Gatsby' is short, but I couldn't finish it. I ready thirty-five pages in two months' time. Dangerous things started to come up, and I couldn't read it. I had to put it down.

On ‘Conrad-The Secret Sharer'

I picked up ‘Conrad-The Secret Sharer'. There's a man at sea, in his cabin, hidden. He's discovered a man, he's committed a murder, I think. They will execute him or something. I haven't gotten very far, but it makes me so nervous I can't read it.

On ‘Airport'

I tried ‘Airport'. It's a big book. It's in an airport, and it's a stormy night. Snow, snow, snow. It's petrifying. That's it, you see. When I read, I get afraid that something terrible will happen. If nothing terribe happens, I don't remember it.

On an ‘Ernst Lubitsch' book

Somebody sent me a book, a publishing house. I'm on the cover, but it's not about me, it's about a very well-known motion picture director who no longer exists (Ernst Lubitsch). He was a marvellous little man, but I did only one little film with him.

Why I should be on the cover I don't know. I opened the books two weeks ago and said , ‘Not today--- manana.' I don't want to settle down and read those long things.
 

Here is a list of books, Garbo may have read:

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils

(She read this classic book as a kid in Sweden)

The Picture of Dorian Gray

(It is said that Garbo loved this Oskar Wilde classic, and read it in the mid or late 1920s)

The Sibyl of the North and Christina of Sweden: A Psychological Biography

(Garbo read those biographies of Sweden's Queen Christina, in the early 1930s)

Chefen fru Ingeborg

(by Hjalmar Bergman, she read this Swedish book in the mid 1940s)

The Great Gatsby

(by F. Scott Fitzgerald, she said she never finished it)

The Divine Garbo

(F. Sands Biography, not sure but it is said she read parts of the book and burned it)

Unknown title

(by American writer Louis B. Bromfield)

Ingrid Bergman's biography and Zarah Leander's biography

(Garbo read both books said Sven Broman on German TV. Broman asked her if she would write her biography one day and she said that she read Leander's and Bergman's biographies and that in both books both ladies wrote that they do not have any real regrets and and GG told Broman "Oh Mr Broman! i have many regrets!")

All Quiet on the Western Front

(Remarque's novel had moved her deeply.)

Tolstoy

(Garbo knew and liked the poetry of Marianne Moore)

Hemingway

(Garbo often quoted American writer Hemingway)

Emily Brontë

(Garbo often quoted British writer Brontë)
 

Garbo also read poetry:

Omar Khayyam

(Persian poet)

Ah, fill the cup-what boots it to repeat
How time is slipping underneath our feet:
Unborn tomorrow and dead yesterday
Why fret about them if today be sweet?

Harriet Lowenhjelm

(her favourite poet)

The Tomten

(by Victor Rydberg)

Herman Wildenvey

(Norwegian poet)

Heinrich Heine

( Garbo also loved Goethe)
 

Garbo made friends of many writers

Garbo made friends of many writers—Huxley, Isherwood, and Maugham among them, and certainly she inspired a few.

Jean Cocteau

"Tell Madame Garbo that I had her in mind when I wrote about Elisabeth in Les Enfants terribles," Jean Cocteau wrote to Roland Caillaud, who briefly was her neighbor in California. "[She is] Garbo at eighteen ... I even put in an exact description of her features at the end, when Elisabeth takes up the revolver."

Alice B. Toklas

Writer Alice B. Toklas, was immune to Garbo's spell—she re¬ferred to her as "Mademoiselle Hamlet," and didn't mean it kindly. Garbo had offended her by taking a hurried glance at the paintings hanging in the Toklas-Stein apartment.

Bertolt Brecht and Aldous Huxley

Bertolt Brecht and Aldous Huxley were among many writers at the Viertel salon, and in company with them Garbo rarely spoke and never competed for the conversational floor. But she was a careful listener, and her interest in books was not restricted to Salka's house or guests.

Erich Maria Remarque

In the early 1940s, Garbo met Erich Maria Remarque, whose All Quiet on the Western Front had moved her deeply. They saw each other subsequently in Europe and New York, and – according to Remarque's wife, actress Paulette Goddard – had a brief affair.

Goddard was not among Garbo's admirers; her reliability (and her husband's) can be questioned m later quoting him on Garbo as saying, "She was lousy in bed."