100 books like Dutch

By Edmund Morris,

Here are 100 books that Dutch fans have personally recommended if you like Dutch. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers

Sam Roggeveen Author Of The Echidna Strategy: Australia's Search for Power and Peace

From my list on understand Asia’s new power politics.

Why am I passionate about this?

A confession: I don’t read a great many books anymore, especially about the region and issue that I focus on. My preferred format for analysis of contemporary events is the long essay supplemented by social media and op-eds. So, rather than offer a selection ripped from today’s Asia headlines, I’ve tried to choose books that I read years (sometimes decades) ago and which stuck with me, books that formed the foundations for my intellectual development, or which just surprised me with their novelty and contrarianism. 

Sam's book list on understand Asia’s new power politics

Sam Roggeveen Why did Sam love this book?

It predates the rise of China’s paramount leader, Xi Jinping, but remains an indispensable guide to how China’s Communist Party works, partly through the author’s years of in-country experience and careful reporting but also through simple comparisons.

For example, to understand the reach of the Party’s Organization Department, imagine a single American institution that chooses the Cabinet, the members of the Supreme Court, the CEOs of big companies, the editors of the major newspapers, the heads of think tanks, and much more. 

By Richard McGregor,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Party as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“A masterful depiction of the party today. . . . McGregor illuminates the most important of the contradictions and paradoxes. . . . An entertaining and insightful portrait of China’s secretive rulers.” —The Economist

“Few outsiders have any realistic sense of the innards, motives, rivalries, and fears of the Chinese Communist leadership. But we all know much more than before, thanks to Richard McGregor’s illuminating and richly-textured look at the people in charge of China’s political machinery. . . . Invaluable.” — James Fallows, National Correspondent for The Atlantic

In this provocative and illuminating account, Financial Times reporter Richard McGregor…


Book cover of The China Choice: Why We Should Share Power

Sam Roggeveen Author Of The Echidna Strategy: Australia's Search for Power and Peace

From my list on understand Asia’s new power politics.

Why am I passionate about this?

A confession: I don’t read a great many books anymore, especially about the region and issue that I focus on. My preferred format for analysis of contemporary events is the long essay supplemented by social media and op-eds. So, rather than offer a selection ripped from today’s Asia headlines, I’ve tried to choose books that I read years (sometimes decades) ago and which stuck with me, books that formed the foundations for my intellectual development, or which just surprised me with their novelty and contrarianism. 

Sam's book list on understand Asia’s new power politics

Sam Roggeveen Why did Sam love this book?

Read this book for the stark portrait it offers of the contest between China and the US for Asia's leadership. You will never again read American bromides about Asia being central to its security interests in the same way.

White argues that America has three options for its Asia policy: it can compete with China for unchallenged leadership, concede leadership, or share power with Beijing. White has since said that it is too late for Washington to do anything but concede, and in my book, I part with him on this point.

By Hugh White,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The China Choice as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

China is rising. But how should the West - and the United States in particular - respond?

This could be the key geopolitical question of the twenty-first century, according to strategic expert Hugh White, with huge implications for the future security and prosperity of the West as a whole. The China Choice confronts this fundamental question, considering the options for the Asian century ahead.

As China's economy grows to become the world's largest, the US has three choices: it can compete, share power, or concede leadership in Asia. The choice is momentous - as significant for the future as any…


Book cover of How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World's Most Dynamic Region

Stefan J. Link Author Of Forging Global Fordism: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Contest over the Industrial Order

From my list on economic and political history.

Why am I passionate about this?

Economic history is, quite simply, my job: I write about it, I research it, and I’ve been teaching it for ten years at a small liberal arts college in New England. I’ve always felt that the best way to make sense of economic change is not by studying formal laws but by reading what past actors have left behind. Numbers and statistics are indispensable, but they acquire meaning only in relation to ideas and power. In any case, that’s what I take the books on this list to suggest. I think of these books—and others like them—as trusty companions. Perhaps you will, too.

Stefan's book list on economic and political history

Stefan J. Link Why did Stefan love this book?

Pithy and compelling, this is perhaps the single best primer on the economic rise of East Asia.

Studwell pinpoints three recipes that allowed Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and China to escape poverty and become export powerhouses: first, industrial policy; second, government oversight over lending and capital flows (sometimes called “financial repression”); and third—something few before him have grasped—egalitarian land reforms that broke up large estates and gave small plots to the many.

Discussions of economic development are often charged with ideology-free markets or government. As this book nonchalantly reveals, that’s a false opposition. In Studwell’s telling, development happens when governments get creative with markets: forge them, shape them, unleash them, and rein them in. A bracing lesson for today’s debates.

By Joe Studwell,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked How Asia Works as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Until the catastrophic economic crisis of the late 1990s, East Asia was perceived as a monolithic success story. But heady economic growth rates masked the most divided continent in the world - one half the most extraordinary developmental success story ever seen, the other half a paper tiger.

Joe Studwell explores how policies ridiculed by economists created titans in Japan, Korea and Taiwan, and are now behind the rise of China, while the best advice the West could offer sold its allies in South-East Asia down the economic river. The first book to offer an Asia-wide deconstruction of success and…


Book cover of The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics

Sam Roggeveen Author Of The Echidna Strategy: Australia's Search for Power and Peace

From my list on understand Asia’s new power politics.

Why am I passionate about this?

A confession: I don’t read a great many books anymore, especially about the region and issue that I focus on. My preferred format for analysis of contemporary events is the long essay supplemented by social media and op-eds. So, rather than offer a selection ripped from today’s Asia headlines, I’ve tried to choose books that I read years (sometimes decades) ago and which stuck with me, books that formed the foundations for my intellectual development, or which just surprised me with their novelty and contrarianism. 

Sam's book list on understand Asia’s new power politics

Sam Roggeveen Why did Sam love this book?

A classic from Australia’s greatest contributor to the theory of international politics. One needs a coherent framework within which to place current events, and Bull’s perfectly titled book provides it.

Yes, world politics is anarchical because there is no ‘global cop.’ But anarchy does not mean chaos. There is enough order in the international realm to consider it a ‘society’ with its own store of conventions, rituals, and traditions—a humane but skeptical book that disdains simple solutions to world affairs. 

By Hedley Bull,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Anarchical Society as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this fundamental text, Hedley Bull explores three key questions: What is the nature of order in world politics? How is it maintained within the contemporary states system? And do desirable and feasible alternatives to the states system exist? Contrary to common claims, Bull asserts that the sovereign states system is not in decline. Rather, it persists and thrives, as it is essential to maintaining an international world order. More than three decades after its publication, Bull's classic work continues to define and direct research in international relations. In this thirty-fifth anniversary edition, the text has been updated and includes…


Book cover of This Was Hollywood: Forgotten Stars and Stories

Lisa Hall Author Of The Mysterious Double Death of Honey Black

From my list on for fans of Old Hollywood.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always loved stories, whether on the page or on the screen, and after reading Gone with the Wind I immediately watched the movie, feeling the pull of Old Hollywood drawing me in. My grandfather was a big movie fan, and I spent many an afternoon watching old movies with him – Hobson’s Choice was a favourite. As I got older, Gaslight, Ocean’s Eleven, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane… they all had me gripped. Factor in my self-confessed obsession with celebrity gossip and that was me done for – Old Hollywood is rife with scandal and gossip!

Lisa's book list on for fans of Old Hollywood

Lisa Hall Why did Lisa love this book?

I stumbled across this beautiful non-fiction hardback while I was searching for books that would immerse me fully into Honey Black’s world, when I first started writing my novel.

This is an excellent book recounting the scandals of Old Hollywood – Clark Gable and Errol Flynn included – complete with an impressive amount of authentic photographs that bring every story to bright, technicolour life. A lot of the scandals referred to in my novel were discovered through reading this book!

By Carla Valderrama,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked This Was Hollywood as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this one-of-a-kind Hollywood history, the creator of Instagram's celebrated @ThisWasHollywood reveals the forgotten past of the film world in a dazzling visual package modeled on the classic fan magazines of yesteryear.

From former screen legends who have faded into obscurity to new revelations about the biggest movie stars, Valderrama unearths the most fascinating little-known tales from the birth of Hollywood through its Golden Age.

The shocking fate of the world's first movie star. Clark Gable's secret love child. The film that nearly ended Paul Newman's career. A former child star who, at ninety-three, reveals her #metoo story for the…


Book cover of Just the Sexiest Man Alive

Kathy L Wheeler Author Of Captivated By His Countess

From my list on romance to keep you turning when you want to sleep.

Why am I passionate about this?

I began my own writing journey in 2007. I skipped many HS classes just to stay home and read. I want to know the ending of a story. I want happy ending. Life is hard, but when I have the ability to write the stories I write with the ending that so many are deprived of, at least I know I can find it in a book of my own choosing. That is my love of romance.

Kathy's book list on romance to keep you turning when you want to sleep

Kathy L Wheeler Why did Kathy love this book?

The opening, hook, if you will, of this book is exactly why I loved it. She is an attorney.

He is a huge over-the-top movie star whose next role is in a courtroom. When he is late, she blows him off and he can’t believe it. I love love love how she stands up to him and basically, puts him in his place. But when he sees her in action, he’s stunned. And, that is what I love!

It’s convincing and I know that in the end things will work out. That’s the joy of Romance. The journey to the ending you know you’ll love.

By Julie James,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Just the Sexiest Man Alive as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

New York Times bestselling author Julie James's debut novel-a dazzling romance about one of Hollywood's biggest movie stars and the woman who refuses to let him capture her heart...

Nothing fazes Taylor Donovan. In the courtroom, she never lets the opposition see her sweat. In her personal life, she never lets any man rattle her-not even her cheating ex-fiance. So when she's assigned to coach People's "Sexiest Man Alive" for his next big legal drama, she refuses to fall for the Hollywood heartthrob's charms.

Jason Andrews is used to having women fall at his feet. When Taylor Donovan gives him…


Book cover of Hollywood Babylon: The Legendary Underground Classic of Hollywood's Darkest and Best Kept Secrets

Daniel Weizmann Author Of Cinnamon Girl

From my list on the dark side of show biz.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up blocks from Hollywood Boulevard in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s and had something like a front-row seat to the greatest pop culture five-car pile-up in American history. At the Canteen on Hollywood and Vine, where my aunt would take me on summer weekdays for the “Extras for Extras Smorgasbord,” you’d rub shoulders with aging starlets, cowpokes, starry-eyed young hopefuls, and “leading men” in five-and-dime ascots who never had a leading role. Even Billy Barty, always of good cheer, would make the scene—he was so nice to me, and I had no idea he played my hero, Sigmund the Sea Monster!

Daniel's book list on the dark side of show biz

Daniel Weizmann Why did Daniel love this book?

If this beautifully illustrated collection of Hollywood tragedies were only kink, only lurid scandal like so many cheap TV potshots, it wouldn’t be the iconic masterpiece it has become. Kenneth Anger’s take on the faded and fallen Hollywood differs because he loves the place and its people with all his heart.

A child starling and renegade director in his own right (Scorpio Rising, Kustom Kar Kommandoes), he oozes child-like wonder and horror on every page. As he puts it in the book’s equally stark sequel, Hollywood Babylon II, the movies “promise immortality, but don’t really deliver.”   

By Kenneth Anger,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Hollywood Babylon as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“Kenneth Anger has fashioned a delicious . . . box of poisoned bonbons. Picking through the slag heap of the Hollywood dream factory, [he] has put together a truly prodigious anthology of star-studded scandal.”—The New York Times

Kenneth Anger is a former child movie actor who grew up to become one of America’s leading underground filmmakers. Hollywood Babylon was originally published in Paris, and quickly became an underground legend. Not a word has been changed. Not a story omitted. Here is the hot, luscious plum of sizzling scandal that continues to shock the world.


Book cover of Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist

Brian Neve Author Of Film and Politics in America: A Social Tradition

From my list on Hollywood blacklist.

Why am I passionate about this?

Years ago, as part of my research, I interviewed Elia Kazan and Abraham Polonsky, two key figures in the blacklist story, and two men who were on different sides in terms of how they responded to the postwar Congressional investigations. These personal encounters – in New York and Los Angeles – fed a fascination with the anti-Communist purge in Hollywood, its dramaturgy, and the way filmmakers of that generation were caught up in it in different ways. There are more specialized works but the books recommended provide a substantive introduction to this still globally resonant topic, calling attention to the problematic and still difficult relationships between citizenship and cultural identity.

Brian's book list on Hollywood blacklist

Brian Neve Why did Brian love this book?

In Tender Comrades, those with experience of the Blacklist tell their stories, prompted expertly by the editors. The book explores the experiences of around forty individuals who were part of the left-wing and liberal community that thrived in Hollywood from the 1930s and 1940s. They involved themselves in political causes and issues, while contributing to some of the key films of that era. The book also captures first-hand accounts of the dynamics of the ‘naming’ process, and how people responded to it – some of them by leaving the country. It is a fascinating story of the impact of these events on private lives and political choices.

By Patrick McGilligan, Paul Buhle,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Tender Comrades as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This text offers an account of the McCarthy era in Hollywood. Using oral history techniques, the authors involve 30 of those who were suppressed and unable to talk at the time, owing to the prevailing anti-Communist witch-hunt.


Book cover of Memoirs and Misinformation

Ryan Uytdewilligen Author Of He's No Angel

From my list on satire and parody on Hollywood to make you laugh.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a classic Hollywood fanatic. I can name you every Best Picture Oscar Winner on command. I’ve written screenplays and seen the industry firsthand, but if I had my choice, I’d go live through the Hollywood Golden Age. I've published numerous non-fiction film history books and have a whole lot more classic-film-inspired novels coming. And I do it all simply for the single reason that writing a book is the closest thing to time travel that I can find. Immersing myself in this world with actors that have lived, and even a few that I’ve made up, is pure heaven that transports me back to the days of the silver screen. 

Ryan's book list on satire and parody on Hollywood to make you laugh

Ryan Uytdewilligen Why did Ryan love this book?

Anything to do with Jim Carrey, I’m in. In fact, when teachers would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’d reply “Be Jim Carrey.” As a longtime fan, I was excited to learn that he would finally be charting his life in an autobiography. As it turns out, the book was mostly wild fiction. What’s so engaging about this book is how he blends real-life occurrences like his body of film work and relationship with Renee Zellweger with completely off-the-wall fantasy like mentor Rodney Dangerfield returning as a Rhino, Kelsey Grammar leading a cult, and Carrey struggling with his career as his entire essence goes virtual. It’s extremely experimental, but the inclusion of celebrities will leave you grinning.     

By Jim Carrey, Dana Vachon,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Memoirs and Misinformation as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • "None of this is real and all of it is true." —Jim Carrey

Meet Jim Carrey. Sure, he's an insanely successful and beloved movie star drowning in wealth and privilege—but he's also lonely. Maybe past his prime. Maybe even ... getting fat? He's tried diets, gurus, and cuddling with his military-grade Israeli guard dogs, but nothing seems to lift the cloud of emptiness and ennui. Even the sage advice of his best friend, actor and dinosaur skull collector Nicolas Cage, isn't enough to pull Carrey out of his slump.

But then Jim meets Georgie: ruthless…


Book cover of Devil's Garden

D. E. Johnson Author Of The Detroit Electric Scheme

From my list on American historical crime.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the author of the Will Anderson Detroit mystery series, which began with The Detroit Electric Scheme. I love vivid novels, those that pull me inside the pages and into the story. My interests balance between crime, historical fiction, and literary fiction. In short, I like a good story, and I don’t much care what label is placed on it. I live in Michigan with my wife and a pair of reasonably friendly cats.

D. E.'s book list on American historical crime

D. E. Johnson Why did D. E. love this book?

Ace Atkins has written a number of excellent historical crime novels based on true stories, and Devil’s Garden is my favorite of the bunch. 

The 1921 murder trial of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle created headlines around the world, and Devil’s Garden illustrates the fall from grace of one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Atkins brings to life Prohibition-era Hollywood, real-life Pinkerton operative Dashiell Hammett who investigates the murder, William Randolph Hearst, actress Marion Davies, and a large cast of grifters, B-girls, politicians, and hangers-on revolving around Fatty’s trial for the murder of actress Virginia Rappe.

By Ace Atkins,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Devil's Garden as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Quinn Colson series comes a noir crime classic about one of the most notorious trials in American history.

San Francisco, September 1921: Silent-screen comedy star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle is throwing a wild party in his suite at the St. Francis Hotel-girls, jazz, bootleg hooch...and a dead actress named Virginia Rappe.

The D.A. says it was Arbuckle who killed her—crushed her under his weight—and brings him up on manslaughter charges. William Randolph Hearst's newspapers stir up the public and demand a guilty verdict.

In desperation, Arbuckle's defense team hires an operative from…


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