Reading List
David Thomson
Film Critic and Historian
David Thomson has written about film for more than fifty years, most durably in The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, a reference book organised as a series of opinionated essays and revised repeatedly since 1975. Born in London and long resident in San Francisco, he has also written biographies of Orson Welles and David O. Selznick, a history of Hollywood, and the introduction to the New York Review Books edition of Alfred Hayes’ My Face for the World to See. He is at his best on the gap between what a film promises and what it delivers.
Picture
by Lillian Ross · 1952 · Nonfiction
“The world had never before heard how the moguls spoke, or thought. Those moguls were horrified when they read themselves in cold print.” — via Article
The Day of the Locust
by Nathanael West · 1939 · Fiction
“The result is a scary portrait of a culture going crazy and a city ready to burn.” — via Article
The Golden Hour
by Matthew Specktor · 2025 · Memoir
“This book is a beautifully written memoir about growing up with the movies” — via Article
My Face for the World to See
by Alfred Hayes · 1958 · Fiction
“A jaded screenwriter sees a young woman about to drown herself on the beach.” — via Article
The Deer Park
by Norman Mailer · 1955 · Fiction
“Still the best novel about love, lust, identity, money, honor, power, producers, and actors.” — via Article
The Last Tycoon
by F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1941 · Fiction
“but it offers a superb glimpse of how a brilliant young head of production runs a studio” — via Article