Booklists: suggested reading

 

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Hollywood/Film Stars Booklist

 

Books (fiction - all genres) about Hollywood and the motion picture industy.

 

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

• Coldheart Canyon
  Author: Barker, Clive
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 27.95 ISBN: 0060182970 Date: 2001
  PW
  Clive Barker returns with his most triumphant novel to date. Coldheart Canyon is a savage, poignant ghost story set in the glittering world of Hollywood where nothing is what it seems--even Death.
  
• Revenge of Kali-Ra
  Author: Beck, K.K.
  Publisher: Mysterious Price: $ 22 ISBN: 089296670x Date: 1999
  PW
  With screen star Nadia Wentworth decides to play the bewitching Kali-Ra, the Queen of Doom, the result is homicide in this deftly comic murder mystery that's chock full of eccentric characters and Hollywood hysteria.
  
• Crazy in Alabama
  Author: Childress, Mark
  Publisher: Putnam $ 22.95 ISBN: 0399138552 Date: 1993
  PW
  The world turns upside down and everything goes a little crazy in this tale by the author of Tender about a hot, restless summer and an unforgettable woman who looks for salvation in Hollywood. "Hilarious and scary!"--Fannie Flagg.
  Updated 7.6.04
• The Adventures of Lucky Pierre: Raw Footage
  Author: Coover, Robert
  Publisher: Grove $ 24 ISBN: 0802117244 Date: 2002
  Kirkus
  A sparkling love song to the magic of moving pictures, and a meditation--both joyous and serious--on how sex compels and invents us, The Adventures of Lucky Pierre is a spectacular tour de force from an American master. - Publisher Marketing
  Updated 7.17.02
• The Martini Shot
  Author: Craig, Peter
  Publisher: Morrow List Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0688156584 Date: 1998
  Kirkus
  Winner of the prestigious Michener-Copernicus Award for best first novel, The Martini Shot tells the poignant, often hilarious story of a dysfunctional Hollywood family.
  
• Pandaemonium
  Epstein, Leslie
  Publisher: St Martins List Price: $24.95 ISBN: 0312156227 Date: 1997
  Library Journal
  NYTBR Notable
  The definitive novel of Hollywood in its most glamorous era, Pandaemonium is an epic that examines the roots of film and its relation to the dark forces of the imagination. Narrated by the ever-wise Peter Lorre, the books assembles a huge cast of Hollywood types who converge on Pandaemonium, a Nevada ghost town, at the onset of World War II.
  
• San Remo Drive: A Novel from Memory
  Author: Epstein, Leslie
  Publisher: Handsel $ 24 ISBN: 1590510666 Date: 2003
  Booklist
  San Remo Drive is a novel of many dimensions. It explores the glamorous life of Hollywood and evokes the landscape of Southern California both as it is no and as it appears before the migration to it of millions. - Publisher Marketing.
  Updated 5.29.03
• Scavenger Hunt
  Author: Ferrigno, Robert
  Publisher: Pantheon $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375421734 Date: 2003
  Booklist
  Fast-paced, darkly funny, unexpected, and crowded with unforgettable characters--both high and low Hollywood, both pretty good and very bad--Scavenger Hunt is Ferrigno at his bristling best as he explores Hollywood movies, moguls, and murder.
  Updated 1.06.03
• Cutting Room
  Author: Klavan, Laurence
  Publisher: Ballantine $ 23.95 ISBN: 0345462742 Date: 2004
  PW
  This tale of the long-lost complete version of Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons launches a mystery series about cinemaniacs--people who literally would kill to see, or own, a movie.
  Updated 12.29.03
• Earthquake Weather
  Author: Lankford, Terrill Lee
  Publisher: Ballantine $ 24.95 ISBN: 0345467779 Date: 2004
  Kirkus
  Mark Hayes goes from aspiring movie producer to murder suspect in the blink of an eye in veteran filmmaker Lankford's sizzling Hollywood noir.
  Updated 3.11.04
• Get Shorty
  Author: Leonard, Elmore
  Publisher: Delacorte $ 18.95 ISBN: 0385301413 Date: 1990
  Kirkus
  Mob-connected loan shark Chili Palmer is sick of the Miami grind. So when he chases a deadbeat client to Hollywood, he decides to stay. This town of dream makers, glitter, and gorgeous, partially-clad starlets seems ideal for an enterprising criminal with a cinematic taste.
  
• Blonde
  Author: Oates, Joyce Carol
  Publisher: Ecco $ 27.50 ISBN: 0060196076 Date: 2000
  PW
  In her most ambitious work to date one of America's most celebrated writers examines the inner, spiritual life of the woman who became Hollywood's most enduring legend--Marilyn Monroe--as seen through her own eyes. "Grimly compelling".--Wall Street Journal.
  Updated 8.2.04
• Love is a Racket
  Author: Ridley, John
  Publisher: Knopf List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0375401423 Date: 1998
  PW
  A brilliant new noir farce by the author of Stray Dogs. An ex-wannabe scriptwriter living on the skids in Hollywood stumbles on a street-hardened, exquisitely beautiful young homeless woman who inspires love... and the idea for the perfect con.
  Suggested Reading: African American Stars
• The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters
  Author: Robinson, Elizabeth
  Publisher: Little Brown $ 23.95 ISBN: 0316735027 Date: 2004
  Kirkus PW Booklist
  The bestselling status (and subsequent blockbuster film adaptations) of Bridget Jones's Diary and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is proof of the enduring strength of this category. Although the novel is invented, Robinson is a successful Hollywood producer whose credits include Braveheart and Last Orders.
  Suggested Reading: Fiction & Mystery Debuts | All Stars | Humorous Fiction
  Updated 11.12.03
• Bitch Goddess
  Author: Rodi, Robert
  Publisher: Plume $ 13 (trade paper) ISBN: 0452283108 Date: 2002
  Booklist
  Told entirely through interviews, e-mails, fan magazine puff pieces, film reviews, shooting scripts, greeting cards, extortion notes, and court depositions, this is a hilarious account of the on-again, off-again career of Viola Chute, the B-grade sex symbol who slept her way to the middle and slid downward from there.
  Booklist Top 10 Gay & Lesbian Books (June 2002)
  Updated 2/24/02
• Man Eater
  Author: Shannon, Ray
  Publisher: Putnam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399149767 Date: 2003
  Kirkus PW
  An Elmore Leonard-style L.A. noir is set in the movie business, featuring the most eclectic cast of dynamic, dangerous characters since Pulp Fiction.
  Updated 12.02.02
• My Last Movie Star
  Author: Sherrill, Martha
  Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 0375507698 Date: 2003
  Kirkus
  When "it girl" Allegra Coleman disappears, the result is a parody and parable of Hollywood that is at once absurdly funny and disturbingly plausible, from a writer possibly destined to become the next new thing.
  Updated 10.31.02
• In Pursuit of a Vanishing Star
  Author: Sobin, Gustaf
  Publisher: Norton $ 23.95 ISBN:0393042049 Date: 2002
  LJ
  Drawing on the legendary life of Greta Garbo, Gustaf Sobin spins a masterful tale about the enigmatic nature of idolatry.
  Updated 1/15/02
• Reality and Dreams
  Spark, Muriel
  Publisher: Houghton List price: $23 ISBN: 0395838118 Date: 1997
  Library Journal Kirkus
  NYTBR Notable
  Muriel Spark's witty and pungent 20th novel draws upon her rich experience turning reality into ficiton and fiction into film. When film director Tom Richards takes a fall from a crane, he drops into a chaos that ends in violence.
  
• Karoo
  Author: Tesich, Steve
  Publisher: Harcourt Brace List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0151002959 Date: 1998
  PW Kirkus LJ
  NYTBR Notable List
  Saul Karoo is a successful Hollywood script doctor, a fixer of flawed film. The unnecessary scenes that he has effortlessly cut form other people's screenplays seems to threaten his own life. But Karoo is the ultimate fixer and must find an emotional and intellectual solution to the problems of his own life.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  
• I'm Losing You
  Author: Wagner, Bruce
  Publisher: Villard $ 23 ISBN: 0679419276 Date: 1996
  Booklist
  Chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, I'm Losing You is set in cordless and unplugged Hollywood a land of H.I.V.I.P.s, porn stars, scheming dermatologists, and cell-phone conversations that never connect. Bruce Wagner charts the morbidity and mortality of our culture's, depicting the national obsession with fame and fortune truth and consequence as never before.
  
• The Assistants
  Author: Williams, Robin Lynn
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060723866 Date: 2004
  LJ
  Compulsively readable and sinfully gossipy, this is the tale of five Hollywood personal assistants who band together to turn the tables on their celebrity employers--written by a former personal assistant to a star.
  Updated 5.4.04
• Mr. Famous
  Author: Wolper, Carol
  Publisher: Riverhead $ 24.95 ISBN: 1573222720 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  An aging action star attempts reinvention as a serious actor and the result is pure comedy in this dead-on Hollywood novel from the author of the national bestseller The Cigarette Girl.
  Updated 5.7.04
• While I Disappear: John Ray Horn
  Author: Wright, Edward
  Publisher: Putnam $ 24.95 ISBN: 0399151982 Date: 2004
  PW Booklist
  This stunning crime novel takes readers into Hollywood's underbelly during a time when the studio system was crumbling yet memories of the glory days were all too familiar.
  Updated 5.7.04

Hollywood/Film Book Classic:

• Day of the Locusts by Nathaniel West

More Stars:

• Playland by John Gregory Dunne
• The Book of Dreams by Craig Nova
• Hollywood: A Novel of America in the 1920's by Gore Vidal