Here are 90 books that Stanley Kubrick fans have personally recommended if you like
Stanley Kubrick.
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Kubrick has fascinated me since I watchedPaths of Gloryat MoMA, one of Stanley’s old haunts, in the early 1960s. I first saw 2001 in London and then once a year after that back home in New York. I taught courses devoted to Kubrick, and when I taught the course online at the University of Virginia, welcomed his brother-in-law, Jan Harlan, to talk to us long distance. With each move, I drew closer and closer to our subject. I visited the Manor at Childwickbury and had lunch with Kubrick’s wife, Christiane. I studied documents in the Kubrick Archive in London. There became a point of recognizing myself in Kubrick himself and his films. A biography was inevitable.
Until David wrote his book, there hadn’t been a biography of Kubrick in over twenty years. While his book is short, it is very readable, and I found it the most intriguing of the short biographies.
Mikics conducted new interviews and visited Kubrick’s archive in London. His readings of Kubrick’s films are precise and elegant.
An engrossing biography of one of the most influential filmmakers in cinematic history
"A cool, cerebral book about a cool, cerebral talent. . . . A brisk study of [Kubrick's] films, with enough of the life tucked in to add context as well as brightness and bite."-Dwight Garner, New York Times
"An engaging and well-researched primer to the work of a cinematic legend."-Library Journal
Kubrick grew up in the Bronx, a doctor's son. From a young age he was consumed by photography, chess, and, above all else, movies. He was a self-taught filmmaker and self-proclaimed outsider, and his films exist…
Kubrick has fascinated me since I watchedPaths of Gloryat MoMA, one of Stanley’s old haunts, in the early 1960s. I first saw 2001 in London and then once a year after that back home in New York. I taught courses devoted to Kubrick, and when I taught the course online at the University of Virginia, welcomed his brother-in-law, Jan Harlan, to talk to us long distance. With each move, I drew closer and closer to our subject. I visited the Manor at Childwickbury and had lunch with Kubrick’s wife, Christiane. I studied documents in the Kubrick Archive in London. There became a point of recognizing myself in Kubrick himself and his films. A biography was inevitable.
I find in this early book on Kubrick by someone who was his friend an in-depth analysis of the director’s style.
But given that the author also knew Kubrick, we found that it was filled with insight from someone who had visited his house and got to know his family. This, until recently, was incredibly rare in the writing about Kubrick.
An exclusive window on one of the most brilliant-and most secretive-filmmakers in history. No moviemaker has kept his world so tightly sealed against intruders as Stanley Kubrick. While many of his films have turned into modern metaphors-we speak of "a 2001 world" or "a Clockwork Orange society"-the man himself has withdrawn into his own obsessive visions. Few have known him personally; fewer still have gained his confidence and seen him at work. For over thirty years, Alexander Walker, a renowned film historian, has been one such privileged observer. Stanley Kubrick Directs first appeared in 1971, giving readers the most authoritative…
Kubrick has fascinated me since I watchedPaths of Gloryat MoMA, one of Stanley’s old haunts, in the early 1960s. I first saw 2001 in London and then once a year after that back home in New York. I taught courses devoted to Kubrick, and when I taught the course online at the University of Virginia, welcomed his brother-in-law, Jan Harlan, to talk to us long distance. With each move, I drew closer and closer to our subject. I visited the Manor at Childwickbury and had lunch with Kubrick’s wife, Christiane. I studied documents in the Kubrick Archive in London. There became a point of recognizing myself in Kubrick himself and his films. A biography was inevitable.
Kubrick was notoriously private about his work, but he opened up to the French critic Michel Ciment. Over the years, the two formed a close relationship, and it is clear in this book.
I found it to be full of Kubrick’s clearest thinking about his work and as personal about it as he ever was.
The classic study of Kubrick--available once again and fully updated
If Stanley Kubrick had made only 2001: A Space Odyssey or Dr. Strangelove, his cinematic legacy would have been assured. But from his first feature film, Fear and Desire, to the posthumously released Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick created an accomplished body of work unique in its scope, diversity, and artistry, and by turns both lauded and controversial.
In this newly revised and definitive edition of his now classic study, film critic Michel Ciment provides an insightful examination of Kubrick's thirteen films-including such favorites as Lolita, A Clockwork Orange, and Full…
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.
Kubrick has fascinated me since I watchedPaths of Gloryat MoMA, one of Stanley’s old haunts, in the early 1960s. I first saw 2001 in London and then once a year after that back home in New York. I taught courses devoted to Kubrick, and when I taught the course online at the University of Virginia, welcomed his brother-in-law, Jan Harlan, to talk to us long distance. With each move, I drew closer and closer to our subject. I visited the Manor at Childwickbury and had lunch with Kubrick’s wife, Christiane. I studied documents in the Kubrick Archive in London. There became a point of recognizing myself in Kubrick himself and his films. A biography was inevitable.
This is an amazingly illustrated book filled with material that was previously only housed on Kubrick’s estate. The material is now available, but you have to travel to London to see it.
This book provides loads of stills as well as images of material that Kubrick collected over the years in the making of his films. There are many useful essays and other writings that really helped us in our understanding of the director, his life, and his films.
In 1968, when Stanley Kubrick was asked to comment on the metaphysical significance of 2001: A Space Odyssey, he replied: "It's not a message I ever intended to convey in words. 2001 is a nonverbal experience... I tried to create a visual experience, one that directly penetrates the subconscious with an emotional and philosophic content."
Now available as part of our Bibliotheca Universalis series, The Stanley Kubrick Archives borrows from the director's philosophy. From the opening sequence of Killer's Kiss to the final frames of Eyes Wide Shut, it allows the masterful visuals of Kubrick's films to impress through a…
From a very early age, writing has always been my one true passion. Ever since I was in eighth grade and my teacher would pass out copies of my journal assignment for that week, I was hooked on the idea of writing. I could create my own world where no one could tell me how my characters should behave. Well, two Pushcart Prize nominations and many awards later, I’m grateful I pursued my dream to become a writer. I hope you’ve enjoyed the list I provided and please feel free to pick up one of my Nick Bracco thrillers about a Sicilian FBI agent who uses his Mafia-connected cousin to track terrorists.
I’ll admit, the Russian villain in this thriller is a very bit part, but I can’t have a top 5 list of any thriller without including Elmore Leonard. I read one of Leonard’s first urban thrillers, Glitz, back in ‘80’s and was blown away with how gritty it was. I’d never heard dialogue coming out of character’s mouths like that before. He wrote dialogue like people actually spoke—not with perfect dialect, but street language. It’s the reason he was dubbed the Dickens of Detroit. If you’ve read Elmore Leonard and liked him, then pick this up and read it. It’s a quasi-sequel to Get Shorty with shylock Chili Palmer moving from the movie industry to the music business.
If you’ve never read Leonard, then start with this one. My writing career would never have flourished like is has without reading Leonard, so this on is near to my heart. Enjoy.
The sequel to Chili Palmer's hit movie tanked and now Chili's itching for a comeback. So when a power lunch with record-label executive and former associate Tommy Athens ends in a mob hit, he soon finds himself in an unlikely alliance with organized-crime detective Darryl Holmes and the likely next target of Russian gangsters. But where others see danger, Chili Palmer sees story possibilities.
Enter Linda Moon, a singer with aspirations that go further than her current gig in a Spice Girls cover band. Chili takes over as Linda's manager, entering the world of rock stars, pop divas, and hip-hop…
I have turned my childhood fascination with Hollywood into an academic career. For four decades I have explored, not least through extensive archival research, all aspects of the history of American cinema – films, filmmakers, studios, production histories, marketing campaigns, critical reception, audiences. Among other books, I have published three volumes in the British Film Institute’s Film Classics series (on Buster Keaton’sThe Generaland Stanley Kubrick’sDr. Strangeloveand2001: A Space Odyssey). I have focused on some of the most highly acclaimed, most commercially successful, most ardently loved, and most influential movies of all time. The starting point for my work is always my passionate engagement with particular movies.
Apart from presenting George Lucas in his own words, this book offers a concise introduction to his career, including a chronology and a filmography.
The interviews collected herein go from a May 1971 article in theSan Francisco Chronicle about the young filmmaker whose first feature, the rather abstract Science Fiction dramaTHX 1138, had just come out (and flopped!), all the way to a conversation with the Los Angeles Times in January 1999 about the forthcoming release of the firstStar Wars prequelStar Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.
Despite dramatic changes in Lucas’s status as a filmmaker (and businessman) across this period, the interviews reveal striking continuities, notably his striving for maximum control over his films and business affairs.
A director, producer, and writer, George Lucas is the power behind ""The Force."" The son of a conservative small-town businessman, he grew up to become arguably the most identifiable and popular filmmaker in the history of the medium. Yet unlike his more publicly engaged contemporaries, Lucas rarely grants reporters an audience. This first book of Lucas's interviews affords fans and students of film and science fiction a rare opportunity. Editor Sally Kline collects conversations from the reticent director spanning Lucas's entire career, from the making of his first film, 1971's THX-1138, through American Graffiti, the triumph of the Star Wars…
This irreverent biography provides a rare window into the music industry from a promoter’s perspective. From a young age, Peter Jest was determined to make a career in live music, and despite naysayers and obstacles, he did just that, bringing national acts to his college campus atUW-Milwaukee, booking thousands of…
I started my career as a graduate student studying the Victorian period, a great age for autobiography. And although autobiography is no longer taught much in English departments, I guess I retain my passion for the genre. The greatest, of course, is Rousseau’s Confessions.
Mekas was a Lithuanian émigré who became an impresario of experimental cinema. He lived a long and eventful life, and this eccentric book is a fascinating account of it.
A Dance with Fred Astaire is an extraordinary collection of anecdotes and rare ephemera featuring a dizzying cast of cultural icons both underground and mainstream, both obscure and celebrated. Memories and diary entries, conversations and insights into his work sit alongside collages of beautifully reproduced postcards, newspaper cuttings, film negatives, lists, posters and photographs, envelopes and letters, book covers, telegrams, cartoons and doodles. Mekas has kept and archived the artifacts of his life as a cultural touchstone down to the minutiae, all of which is brought together here in the form of a unique and fascinating scrapbook of a life…
I hold degrees in law and psychology, and have a keen interest in behavioural science and forensic psychology. As a thriller writer and a reader, I love exploring the darker side of the human mind. I have always been more interested in why somebody commits a crime than in how they got caught. What causes the average person to commit a horrific crime? Do 'average' people even exist? Are some people just wired a certain way and can't help what they do? These are the questions I like to explore in the books I read as well as the ones I write.
This book terrified me, mainly because I happened to read it just after getting out of a long-term relationship. The premise itself is pretty perverse, or maybe sad depending on your viewpoint – a widow who hasn’t moved on since the death of his wife holds auditions for a fake movie so that he can find his perfect mate. As you’ll see in my own novel, auditions can often be the perfect cover for something more sinister. In this case though, it’s the auditionee who gets the upper hand. Very creepy and with a great twist, Audition is definitely one to read.
In this gloriously over-the-top tale, Aoyama, a widower who has lived alone with his son ever since his wife died seven years before, finally decides it is time to remarry. Since Aoyama is a bit rusty when it comes to dating, a filmmaker friend proposes that, in order to attract the perfect wife, they do a casting call for a movie they don't intend to produce. As the resumes pile up, only one of the applicants catches Aoyama's attention-Yamasaki Asami-a striking young former ballerina with a mysterious past. Blinded by his instant and total infatuation, Aoyama is too late in…
Shawn Levy is the author of 11 books of biography and pop culture history, including The Castle on Sunset: Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood's Chateau Marmont, Paul Newman: A Life, Rat Pack Confidential, and Ready, Steady, Go! The Smashing Rise and Giddy Fall of Swinging London. He was the longtime film critic of The Oregonian newspaper and KGW-TV in his beloved home city of Portland. He has written a history of the women pioneers of standup comedy which will be published by Doubleday in 2022 and at work on a podcast about the dark connections of politics and show business.
Before he became a writer of potboiler novels and true-crime journalism, Dominick Dunne was a film and television producer and a social butterfly who also happened also to be an avid amateur photographer. This memoir of his Hollywood days, which resulted in a crash-and-burn from which he emerged as a writer, is filled with intimate, candid images of such friends (not all faithful) as Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Taylor, Natalie Wood, Paul Newman, and Frank Sinatra, as well, of course, as Dunne and his family. There are dreamy and even eye-popping tales throughout, and if you're at all familiar with Dunne's books or magazine writing, you'll marvel at how so much of it so neatly dovetails with the life he actually lived and, thankfully, captured on film and in these frank and candid pages.
Mesmerizing, revelatory text combines with more than two hundred photographs -- most of them taken by the author -- in a startling illustrated memoir that will both astonish and move you.
When Dominick Dunne lived and worked in Hollywood, he had it all: a beautiful family, a glamorous career, and the friendship of the talented and powerful. He also had a camera and loved to take pictures. These photographs, which Dunne carefully preserved in more than a dozen leatherbound scrapbooks -- along with invitations, telegrams, personal notes, and other memorabilia -- record the parties, the glittering receptions, the society weddings,…
Taiwanese-Language Cinema
by
Ming-Yeh Rawnsley (editor),
This is the first anthology in English about a long-neglected but now rediscovered cinema phenomenon in Taiwan, Taiwanese-language cinema (a.k.a. Taiyupian).
Taiyupian was a substantial commercial film industry that produced over 1,000 films between the 1950s and 1970s in Taiwan. Once the industry declined, they were quickly forgotten for…
I have long been an ardent admirer and student of works that transgress boundaries and extend the frontiers of literature. A blurring and subversion of genres, or fusion of forms and modalities, arouses my imagination and inspires me to see differently, to read differently, to travel to places within myself that otherwise might remain undiscovered and uncharted. To me, writing is an ongoing experiment, a series of progressions and adventures which ask me to stay open, supple, and curious. There is no set formula—each book demands its own form, and both as writer and reader, I most desire to be engaged in what is a solitary ritual of interaction.
While this book is a bio-memoir, I included it on my list as a correspondent homage to the cinematic shaman of twisted mysteries, David Lynch. For the past forty plus years, Lynch has dreamscaped a long day’s journey into night, taking audiences on a hallucinated tour through the underworld of their own splintered psyche. Lynch’s oeuvre, a steam-punk Frankenstein of interchangeable parts, speaks to the savvy and glee of a mad scientist at play, while his blending of the eternal with American pop has given us a surrealistic soap opera with an eye toward the numinous. Written in alternating chapters, between Lynch and McKenna, this book is a must-read for fans of Lynch, but beyond that, if you are a fan and lover of cinema, creative process, and following your bliss, Room to Dreamstrikes those chords with a down-to-earth immediacy. It is, in essence, one man’s multi-layered valentine…
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An unprecedented look into the personal and creative life of the visionary auteur David Lynch, through his own words and those of his closest colleagues, friends, and family
“Insightful . . . an impressively industrious and comprehensive account of Lynch’s career.”—The New York Times Book Review
In this unique hybrid of biography and memoir, David Lynch opens up for the first time about a life lived in pursuit of his singular vision, and the many heartaches and struggles he’s faced to bring his unorthodox projects to fruition. Lynch’s lyrical, intimate, and unfiltered personal reflections riff…
