On Photography
Hers is one of those names that is constantly mentioned — especially if you read literary essays or are generally interested in the New York City art scene in the 1970s through the 1990s.
Non-Fiction
Non-fiction that has not been adapted creatively. Primarily diaries and primary source documents such as court records.
Non-Fiction is a genre.
You can view all genres, or you can search by language/region, editor/translator, era/movement, book authors, or year of edition.
Girl, Interrupted
Girl, Interrupted features one of my favourite structures — it is a memoir constructed via vignettes. There are lots of margins here.
Written on Water
These essays are talks over coffee and catching up after a long week. They are close friends talking about the issues that matter to them and the parts of the past still stuck to the hem of their clothes.
Hollywood Babylon
here’s one thing you have to remember if you decide to take this trip into the past of Hollywood mayhem. Most of the stories here? Not true. As in: ludicrously not true.
Adventures in the Screen Trade
I came to William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade via last week’s book, Julie Salamon’s The Devil’s Candy. It was actually mentioned in the puffery on the back of that essential book as being another essential book.
The Devil’s Candy
Salamon is exhaustive in her recounting of the movie-making process, from casting all the way to the final agonizing returns. I learned a lot about what it takes to produce a film, and the processes of people far removed from the actors and the cameras.
Dorothy Parker in Hollywood
I came late to the work of Dorothy Parker and I came to it in a piecemeal way that I think many modern readers come to it. Honestly, I knew more about the saga of Parker’s mortal remains being stored in a filing cabinet for decades than I did about her.
Victorian Murderesses
Hartman asks for serious scholars only, and for the reader to commit to thinking about more than how much blood the scene contained and which gory details are the most disgusting.
The Basement
This isn’t just a book about a crime nor is it a fictionalization of that crime. Millett spends time with victim and perpetrator and with her own reactions to the case.
Constant Reader
If you’ve never read Dorothy Parker, you are in for a real treat with this book. She’s a writer that was known just as much for the sharpness of her wit as for the products of her pen, and she is delightfully funny in that very special, dry, sarcastic way that I always love.