Here are 100 books that Empire's Mistress, Starring Isabel Rosario Cooper fans have personally recommended if you like
Empire's Mistress, Starring Isabel Rosario Cooper.
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My name is Susan Blumberg-Kason and I write books about strong women who have a strong sense of place. I think we are all partly defined by where we live and I enjoy examining how our environment informs our choices. My first book centers around someone I know very well—me! My memoir, Good Chinese Wife, takes place in my favorite city—Hong Kong—the place where I came of age and married for the first time, as well as China and a few cities in the US. I’m also a sucker for a good cover and I absolutely love my Good Chinese Wife cover!
There’s so much texture on this cover, and the Renoir painting stands out because it’s probably the most recognizable part. The story involves Irene Cahen d’Anvers, the woman who sat for Renoir as a young girl, and how she came from a prominent Jewish family in France. Irene made some pivotal decisions that would forever change the lives of her ex-husband and daughter.
A powerful history of Jewish art collectors in France, and how an embrace of art and beauty was met with hatred and destruction
"The depths of French anti-Semitism is the stunning subject that Mr. McAuley lays bare. . . . [He] tells this haunting saga in eloquent detail. As French anti-Semitism rises once again today, the effect is nothing less than chilling."-Diane Cole, Wall Street Journal
"Elegantly written and deeply moving. . . . [A] haunting book."-David Bell, New York Review of Books
In the dramatic years between 1870 and the end of World War II, a number of prominent…
My name is Susan Blumberg-Kason and I write books about strong women who have a strong sense of place. I think we are all partly defined by where we live and I enjoy examining how our environment informs our choices. My first book centers around someone I know very well—me! My memoir, Good Chinese Wife, takes place in my favorite city—Hong Kong—the place where I came of age and married for the first time, as well as China and a few cities in the US. I’m also a sucker for a good cover and I absolutely love my Good Chinese Wife cover!
I have to say that I do sometimes judge a book by its cover and this one blew me away. I could already tell it would be a fun account of women in 1920s Cairo. I loved learning about the positions in society these divas held at a time when women around the world were just starting to get some rights—maybe.
One of the world's most multicultural cities, twentieth-century Cairo was a magnet for the ambitious and talented. During the 1920s and '30s, a vibrant music, theater, film, and cabaret scene flourished, defining what it meant to be a "modern" Egyptian. Women came to dominate the Egyptian entertainment industry-as stars of the stage and screen but also as impresarias, entrepreneurs, owners, and promoters of a new and strikingly modern entertainment industry.
Raphael Cormack unveils the rich histories of independent, enterprising women like vaudeville star Rose al-Youssef (who launched one of Cairo's most important newspapers); nightclub singer Mounira al-Mahdiyya (the first woman…
My name is Susan Blumberg-Kason and I write books about strong women who have a strong sense of place. I think we are all partly defined by where we live and I enjoy examining how our environment informs our choices. My first book centers around someone I know very well—me! My memoir, Good Chinese Wife, takes place in my favorite city—Hong Kong—the place where I came of age and married for the first time, as well as China and a few cities in the US. I’m also a sucker for a good cover and I absolutely love my Good Chinese Wife cover!
This cover completely drew me in because the typewriter,
cityscape, and WWII airplanes all show an urgency and a story just waiting to be
told. Cohen writes about prominent WWII foreign correspondents, including
Dorothy Thompson and Frances Fineman, who travel the world in search of the
latest war update. It was certainly not as easy to get from country to country
back then—especially across vast oceans—so I really appreciated their
determination to travel.
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A prize-winning historian’s “effervescent” (The New Yorker) account of a close-knit band of wildly famous American reporters who, in the run-up to World War II, took on dictators and rewrote the rules of modern journalism
“High-speed, four-lane storytelling . . . Cohen’s all-action narrative bursts with colour and incident.”—Financial Times
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, NPR, BookPage
They were an astonishing group: glamorous, gutsy, and irreverent to the bone. As cub reporters in the 1920s, they roamed across a war-ravaged world, sometimes perched atop mules on wooden saddles,…
My name is Susan Blumberg-Kason and I write books about strong women who have a strong sense of place. I think we are all partly defined by where we live and I enjoy examining how our environment informs our choices. My first book centers around someone I know very well—me! My memoir, Good Chinese Wife, takes place in my favorite city—Hong Kong—the place where I came of age and married for the first time, as well as China and a few cities in the US. I’m also a sucker for a good cover and I absolutely love my Good Chinese Wife cover!
Marc Chagall is a household name to arts aficionados, but
his daughter Ida was also renowned in the Paris art world before World War II.
This lovely novel tells of the overbearing way Chagall treated Ida and how he
viewed her more as an assistant than a daughter. And when she married, he
painted “The Wedding Chair” as a gift to her, which represented his anger at
her leaving. This novel helped bring about a new trend to recount the untold
stories of women alongside—or even in front of—famous men.
"In prose as painterly and evocative as Chagall's own dazzling brushstrokes, Gloria Goldreich finely evokes one of the most significant masters of modern art through the discerning eyes of [his] loyally protective daughter."—Cynthia Ozick, award-winning author of Foreign Bodies
An exquisite, haunting exploration of the complex mind of Marc Chagall, and the artist's famous chair, through the eyes of his daughter during World War II—perfect for fans of Mrs. Poe and The Paris Wife
Beautiful Ida Chagall, the only daughter of Marc Chagall, is blossoming in the Paris art world beyond her father's controlling gaze. But, her newfound independence is…
I’ve been creating female-fronted Science Fiction stories since I was a child. My love for Star Wars motivated me to go to film school and then spend years working on the representation of women in Science Fiction movies, TV series, and video games. I’ve written about characters like Leia Organa and Hera Syndulla in Star Wars,Dana Scully in The X-Files,Sarah Connor in The Terminator, and Elisabeth Shaw in Prometheus. I have recently started sharing some of my research on Medium. Some of the books on this list have supported my research for over 15 years while I discovered others during my doctoral studies.
LaSalle’s book made me fall in love with Pre-Code Hollywood despite having been in film and media studies for 20 years.
His in-depth study of many famous actresses during this era such as Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, and Jean Harlow, shows how freer women could be on screen for their life choices.
The later chapters address the lasting impact of the Code era on the representation of women and their agency, even on contemporary movies. As he discusses it, the Code caused the decline of “socially responsive women’s pictures.”
Between 1929 and 1934, women in American cinema took lovers, had babies out of wedlock, got rid of cheating husbands, enjoyed their sexuality and led unapologetic careers. Before then, women on screen had come in two varieties - sweet ingenue or vamp. Then two stars came along and blasted away those stereotypes. Greta Garbo turned the femme fatale into a woman whose capacity for love and sacrifice made all other human emotions seem pale. Meanwhile, Norma Shearer succeeded in taking the ingenue to a place she'd never been: the bedroom. These complicated women paved the way for a deluge of…
I am an old movie fan and a novelist who has been writing historical fiction about show business since 2010. As a stickler for detail, I use oodles of old Hollywood biographies and other research sources to learn everything I can about my subjects and weave as accurate a tale as I can. My Forgotten Actresses series is up to four books, with plenty more under construction.
As someone who adores all things Pickford (and has written about Mary’s sister-in-law, Olive Thomas), there’s no way I couldn’t include this book, which covers the association between silent star Mary Pickford and her scenarist Frances Marion.
I love the dynamic between these two powerful women, and Benjamin does a good job of establishing their relationship. There is a lot to love about this book: the writing, the dialog, and the detail. I love this book!
My only quibble is the picture they used for the front cover. I’d have picked it up long before I did if they’d actually used a picture of Mary and Frances because I would have recognized instantly who it was about.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Swans of Fifth Avenue and The Aviator’s Wife, a “rich exploration of two Hollywood friends who shaped the movies” (USA Today)—screenwriter Frances Marion and superstar Mary Pickford
“Full of Old Hollywood glamour and true details about the pair’s historic careers . . . a captivating ode to a legendary bond.”—Real Simple
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE
It is 1914, and twenty-five-year-old Frances Marion has left her (second) husband and her Northern California home for the lure of Los Angeles, where she is determined to…
I am obsessed with personal development, having attended seminars to walk across hot coals and jump from crazy heights to test my limits, and I have read hundreds of books and watched hundreds of videos on self-improvement. But sometimes the best lessons come in fiction, and kid’s books do this so wonderfully. And they are a lot quicker to read and absorb! They also teach with humour, rhythm, and joy, and can change a child’s life simply by letting them escape into a world of laughter and joy, expanding their imaginations, and letting them absorb the lessons, sometimes without even realising it.
Okay, I am totally cheating here. Harpo Speaks! is not specifically a kid’s book at all (although it would be wonderful to read with and to upper primary and older), but it is my favourite book of all time, and I couldn’t not include it here. Harpo Speaks! is the autobiography of Harpo Marx. I have read it at least ten times, and every time I learn something new.
The Marx Brothers show how life can and should be fun, but that the fun comes after and while you are working incredibly hard towards a dream. And of all of them, Harpo’s attitude to and joy of life is a lesson to us all. I can’t recommend this highly enough.
Facsimile of 1961 Edition. “Adolph Marx [Harpo] squashed his formal education at the age of eight when he was dumped out of the 2nd grade window at P.S. 86 for the last time by two Irish classmates. He never went back. But his informal education blossomed on the streets of New York's Upper East Side; as a piano player in the Happy Times Tavern, on the vaudeville circuit of the early 1900's, at all-night poker games in the Algonquin Hotel. This is a racy autobiography by the mute Marx Brother with the rolling eyes, oversized pants and red wig who…
I fell in love with Hollywood’s Golden Age when I first watched Psycho. From there, every new film and book from or about the era has been a journey into Hollywood’s history. I got into higher education and writing because I enjoy sharing what I’ve learned with others as much as I enjoy the learning process itself. What interests me most about Hollywood history is how the industry has interacted with American and global history. Hollywood has always had either a front-row seat or a seat at the table of history in the making. Not always on the right side of history, but always fascinating.
Wasson and Basinger are two other authors where you simply want to read everything they’ve written.
The reason I picked Hollywood: The Oral History for this list is that you have several hundred pages of Hollywood players telling their own stories. What could be better?? We get the scoop from stars, grips, screenwriters, carpenters, producers, directors, publicists, and everything in between.
What was it like to work in Hollywood in 1949? This book has your answer. What was the transition from Old Hollywood to New Hollywood like, this book has the goods.
'Absorbing . . . rippling with fun and atmosphere.' Sight & Sound
'Hollywood's ultimate oral history.' New Yorker
The greatest conversation in the history of Hollywood.
From the archives of the American Film Institute comes a unique picture of what it was like to work in Hollywood from its beginnings to its present day. Hollywood: The Oral History, lets a reader 'listen in' on candid remarks from the biggest names in front of the camera - Bette Davis, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Jane Fonda, Harold Lloyd - the biggest…
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!
Martin Turnbull is somewhat of an expert on Old Hollywood and I found his incredible website in my research for Honey Black.
His website is full of original photos of LA throughout the decades and these were invaluable for me when I was writing certain scenes. I then discovered he had written a series of books based in Hollywood, following three friends who come together to navigate their way through the movie business, starting with The Garden of Allah set in the late 1920s. It’s a fascinating look at the seedier side of Old Hollywood.
Have you ever wanted to climb into a time machine and visit Hollywood during its heyday?
Right before talking pictures slug Tinsel Town in the jaw, a luminous silent screen star converts her private estate into the Garden of Allah Hotel. The lush grounds soon become a haven for Hollywood hopefuls to meet, drink, and revel through the night. George Cukor is in the pool, Tallulah Bankhead is at the bar, and Scott Fitzgerald is sneaking off to a bungalow with Sheilah Graham while Madame Alla Nazimova keeps watch behind her lace curtains.
I grew up in a creative family. My father was an illustrator before becoming a children’s book author and novelist. My mother, a trained dancer, became my father’s collaborator, illustrating their internationally-known Frances books. They inspired me and encouraged me to develop my own talent. I started writing at nine, and have never stopped since. I became a journalist, writing about culture and art for The New York times, New York Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Vogue, among others. I am also the author of three well-received artist biographies: Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art; Lucian Freud: Eyes Wide Open; and Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty.
The quintessential book for anyone writing a modern biography, as well as a page-turning read. Jean Stein and George Plimpton brilliantly create a moving portrait of an Andy Warhol acolyte who became a Warhol Superstar and then an enduring icon of the 1960s, before dying of a drug overdose at age 28. A fascinating oral history that simultaneously depicts a beautiful, glamourous, and troubled young woman and a nation undergoing a paradigm shift.
A brilliant and unique biography of Andy Warhol's tragic muse, the 60s icon Edie Sedgwick
'Exceptionally seductive... You can't put it down' LA Times
Outrageous, vulnerable and strikingly beautiful - in the 1960s Edie Sedgwick became both an emblem of, and a memorial to, the doomed world spawned by Andy Warhol.
Born into a wealthy New England Edie's childhood was dominated by a brutal but glamourous father. Fleeing to New York, she became an instant celebrity, known to everyone in the literary, artistic and fashionable worlds. She was Warhol's twin soul, his creature, the superstar of his films and, finally,…
