Maybe it was her seven years playing a starship commander, but Kate Mulgrew – the erstwhile Captain Janeway of “Star Trek: Voyager” – is a take-charge, no-nonsense reader.
“I’ve stopped committing myself to reading through if I’m not interested,” she says flatly. “There are too many great books out there.”
Which is why she kicked Joseph O’Neill’s post-9/11 novel “Netherland” to the curb halfway through.
“It got great reviews, but it just didn’t capture my imagination at all,” she tells The Post’s Barbara Hoffman. “Maybe I’m not so evolved.”
Her “Star Trek” pedigree aside, she’s not into fantasy, either, and has yet to read a single book by J.K. Rowling. Even so, she’s happy to find herself playing opposite Harry Potter himself – Daniel Radcliffe – in the revival of “Equus,” starting previews on Broadway next month. Starring with them is Richard Griffiths, the Potter film franchise’s dreadful Uncle Vernon, who’d teamed with Radcliffe when the show played London.
“They’re superb,” Mulgrew says. “It’s like playing top tennis.”
Here’s what’s tops on her current reading list:
While They Slept
by Kathryn Harrison
[Harrison’s memoir] “The Kiss” was probably one of the most provocative books ever – about a father-daughter love affair. She brings that to this story, about a 16-year-old boy who’s in love with his sister, and who takes a baseball bat and beats his mother and father and sister to death while they’re sleeping. . . . It’s like drinking vodka cut with lye.
The Golden Notebook
by Doris Lessing
[Lessing’s] a Socialist, she’s slightly mad and she’s South African, and she brings to bear all her experience, passion and rage in this book. How did she do three different stories like that, interweaving three characters so brilliantly, so seamlessly? When other writers try that, they screw up.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Journals: 1952-2000
edited by Andrew Schlesinger and Stephen Schlesinger
I’ve always heard about him from my husband [Ohio Democrat Tim Hagan], a politician who knew him, and I thought that if I should read about the days of “Camelot,” Schlesinger’s take would probably be the most astute. He really goes into stuff about Jackie and Bobby . . . I read it straight through.
Crossing to Safety
by Wallace Stegner
I call Stegner a Pointillist in terms of character description – he can write characters with such grace, it’s his area of absolute expertise. Here he quietly studies two couples and the evolution of their friendship over a lifetime. It’s very simple and very beautiful.