27 books like Conversations with Wilder

This book coined the maxim far and away the most quoted in Hollywood to this day: “Nobody knows anything.” I first read it the year before I broke in. My copy is heavily annotated with yellow highlighter and red pen; a black paperclip still marks the second of Goldman’s two capitalized maxims, “Screenplays are structure.” The value of this book to anyone wanting to understand – or survive in – Hollywood is that, ironically, Goldman, one of the most successful screenwriters and novelists in Hollywood history, knew almost everything, not only about screenwriting, but also the psychology, cautious care, and perilous feeding of actors, directors, executives, and the rest of the Hollywood zoo. It’s both a textbook and survival guide, illustrated with a veteran’s vivid stories about life behind the tinsel.

Sidney Lumet directed Twelve Angry Men and The Verdict, among many others, and the beauty of this short book is just how practical he is about his craft. In the magazine interviews and hagiographies about directors, we seldom get a true sense of the working day on a movie set, or what happens long before shooting begins and months after it finishes. But here Lumet reveals why he always tried to schedule a very simple shot for the first set-up on day 1 of production, the value of a rehearsal period (if he was granted one) and that he took a lunchtime nap. From first being offered a script to the final sound mix, this is what a movie director really does.

Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy really, really wants everyone to write a song, and I find it terribly endearing.

I picked up his handbook amid a COVID-era creative block, and with Jeff as my songwriting sherpa, I was eventually able to drop some baggage and make my way up. I had already known that music would pay me back for the effort, but Jeff (I think he’d want me to call him Jeff) patiently walks through directly applicable strategies such as word-laddering, stealing, and the Dadaist cut-up technique for lyric writing.

His encouraging nudge made it easier to leave self-judgment and even good sense behind.

Of all the creative self-help books out there, Twyla Tharp’s perspective stands out as one fueled by awareness and curiosity rather than grit and force.

For me, this gentler, more curious cultivation of creativity has proved sustaining as opposed to the conventional wisdom that suggests life must be pushed away or overcome to create. As a choreographer and dancer, her wisdom on building a life of creative expression is broad and encompassing, focusing on how one interacts with the world rather than the products one creates.

The inspiration in this book is followed up with practices that have changed the way I approach seeing the world, focusing my thoughts, and allowing the creative process to transport me to surprising places.

Other people kept recommending this book to me, but I kept putting it off. I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t bring myself to read it. Once I did, the only thing I had to regret was that I hadn’t read it sooner. Now, I’ve returned to its pages time and time again to re-ignite my own love of creating and to remind me that it’s never too late to follow new creative dreams. This book makes me laugh and cry with the hope and pain of creating art, but the most important part of it to me is its relentless insistence that we all must ignore that annoying “You will never be an artist” putdown. Read this book and you will know, without a doubt, that you can be an artist if you want, no matter the obstacles. 

This is probably the most challenging read here, but so worth the effort if you want to dive deep into one of the most unique artistic minds of our time. If you’re not a trained actor, you might not understand all of the nuances here – Mamet is a definite theater guy and doesn’t stop down to explain every detail here -- but any artist can learn Mamet’s biting, witty, shocking creative tips. I recommend just letting this one wash over you the first time, but if you give yourself to this text and to Mamet, it is sure to give you a new perspective on the way we all create art and hopefully inspire you to delve into some creative expression that you were always too scared to try. 

In contrast to Hollywood, Krzysztof Kieslowski worked under Polish Communism for the first 20 years of his career, before he became better known in the West with the Three Colours Trilogy. In Poland, it wasn’t the box office that determined a filmmaker’s fate but what the state censors thought. His film Blind Chance wasn’t released for six years because it suggested that a person’s political affiliation – whether they become a dissident or party member – was up to, well, blind chance. This is a wonderfully thoughtful book not only about film-making, but working under Communism, what it is to be a creative artist, and, if I may, life.

As perfectly tragic as one of his Jazz Age characters, Fitzgerald drank himself to death before finishing this novel which in my opinion, could have been his best. Like Gatsby, Monroe Stahr is an eloquent, rich, and isolated character, pining for a mysterious woman. He is a hugely successful movie mogul in the golden age of Hollywood, and Fitzgerald’s contempt for the studio system’s treatment of writers is here on full satirical display. The sparse prose sparkles with diamond-like harshness and clarity as the doomed love affair plays out. I’m sure it's his least known novel since it is technically “unfinished,” but most editions publish Fitzgerald’s unfinished future chapters, his pass at the ending as well as his notes and outlines, making this a master class in novel writing.

If You Lived Here You’d Be Famous By Now is a debut novel by Via Bleidner, a young writer who reports her experiences living in the L.A./San Fernando Valley enclave of Calabasas, attending the Calabasas High School. Calabasas, for those who have missed this essential chapter of contemporary lunacy, is home to the Kardashians. Bleidner writes about the world she has inhabited as a reporter. She participates, but she also is able to maintain a certain writer's detachment describing the shenanigans the natives engage in: lip surgery, social media, and dog celebrities. But there is humor in this slice of the L.A. experience. Bleidner not only describes, but also tries to understand and reflect. 

Sweet Lina McLaidlaw loves charming Johnny Aysgarth, but Johnny Aysgarth marries her for her money and doesn’t change his gambling, seducing ways one bit once he’s done so. 

What makes the book so riveting is that Lina learns exactly what Johnny is like, yet she can’t bring herself to stop loving him. At one point she does leave him, but she voluntarily goes back. 

Lina knows Johnny will eventually kill her so he can have it all and, knowing this, she puts herself in the cruel position of waiting for that to happen. 

This book was made into a so-so Hitchcock film featuring Cary Grant and a memorable glass of milk, but the book is a riveting, breath-stealing masterpiece.