Hitchcock

By Francois Truffaut,

Book cover of Hitchcock: A Definitive Study of Alfred Hitchcock

Book description

One is ravished by the density of insights into cinematic questions...Truffaut performed a tour de force of tact in getting this ordinarily guarded man to open up as he had never done before (and never would again)...If the 1967 Hitchcock/Truffaut can now be seen as something of a classic, this…

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Why read it?

3 authors picked Hitchcock as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Probably the #1 challenge for me as a mystery writer is holding the readers’ attention and keeping them engaged from Page One to The End. The answer is: create suspense. Keep the reader wondering What’s going to happen next. Ask unanswered questions. Not so much “Whodunnit?” but the more complex: “What’s going on here?”

This book contains interviews with Alfred Hitchcock, the premier master of suspense, talking to the great director Francois Truffaut and dissecting the how-to of creating suspense. His examples and explanations made me truly understand the choices I make when I structure a plot, a scene, or…

If one wants to hear Hitchcock’s voice, this set of interviews provides the gold standard. The book, which was also important for Hitchcock’s reception, includes discussions of every major film.

Hitchcock talks informally about what his intentions were, how he created individual scenes, and what kinds of meanings lie hidden in the works. Most readers are drawn to Hitchcock criticism after being engaged by an individual film, and they will find welcome orientation here.

From Mark's list on Alfred Hitchcock.

I love the films of Alfred Hitchcock. After reading a few pages, I knew this was the book for me.

It’s a series of interviews the French filmmaker François Truffaut had with Alfred Hitchcock about his films. I’ve always wanted to ask Hitchcock questions about his movies, and now Truffaut has done that for me.

How often do you get to sit in on a discussion like this? For example, I was fascinated to learn that the famous shower scene in Psycho took seven days to film with seventy camera setups. All for forty-five seconds of film.

I can be…

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Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

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