100 books like The Dance of Reality

I knew the film Blade Runner before I read this, the novel upon which it's based, but I was not prepared for the richer complexities of the novel.

My favorite parts of the novel, a bizarre new religion and the extinction of all but human and animal life, barely make it into the film. Even the androids, built to be slaves, are much more nuanced and complex than in the film. I loved the conclusion of the book, which affirms the beauty of life, both natural and mechanical.

I love stories that are many things at the same time. They can open a person up to a wider perspective, a greater awareness; that’s the kind of story I love to write. Kafka’s stories can be considered as absurd allegory, as surreal evocations of mystery and magic, as psychological study, as satire, as dark comedy… as all of these and more at once. Many of Kafka’s stories were considered by the author to be unfinished but to me they seem complete. Kafka famously tried to ‘finish’ all of his stories once and for all by instructing his friend to destroy them after his death. Thankfully, he was prevented from adding that final full stop.

Long ago, I watched a dream of a movie called Street of Crocodiles by the Quay Brothers. It was based on a story by someone called Bruno Schulz. I bought the book. Though there are only two Bruno Schulz books, it is as if there are a thousand Bruno Schulz books hidden between their words. His stories are often unable to contain themselves and his writing bursts out into reverie. Shot dead by a Nazi officer at the age of fifty, his writing displays a sensitivity that is the antithesis of something as brutal as firing a bullet into a human being. He creates a mood of receptivity. You may find the world more magical, wonderful, and deep after reading Bruno Schulz.

A short fantasy, utterly wild and utterly outrageous! It’s not a single coherent world like the others on this list, more a series of surreal scenes, each one a lightning raid into the depths of the human psyche.

The Freudian unconscious turned into real settings and characters! It’s also more cerebral than other books on this list—Carter is playing with ideas, but a kind of play that’s just so much fun. A workout for the imagination that also stretches the mind!

Traditional fantasy, it ain’t! An algorithm for turning up ‘More Books Like This’ doesn’t have a hope (though they’ll try). This book’s an algorithm buster! 

Okay, it’s more of an autobiography than a memoir, but Kazan’s 826-page volcano is the most explosive and mesmerizing show-business book I’ve ever plunged into. From his salad days as a struggling actor with New York’s Group Theatre to his conquest of Broadway as the hottest, most pugnacious stage director of the mid-20th century (Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), to his Oscar-winning films (Streetcar, Gentleman’s Agreement, On the Waterfront), Kazan vividly recounts his triumphs, missteps and misdeeds, his mistreatment of his wife and many lovers, and his betrayal of former friends and comrades, in a voice overflowing with self-laceration and self-justification. With a supporting cast that includes Tennessee Williams, Vivien Leigh, Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, and James Dean.

The dutiful daughter of one studio mogul and devoted wife of another, Irene Selznick was Hollywood royalty throughout the 1920s to 40s, the Golden Age of American cinema. Her father, the tyrannical Louis B. Mayer, steered MGM, Hollywood’s most successful studio, discovered Greta Garbo and victimized Judy Garland. Her husband, David O. Selznick made the first A Star Is Born and Gone with the Wind before self-destructing from drugs and megalomania. Irene escaped the shadow of overpowering men to become the respected Broadway producer of A Streetcar Named Desire, a woman to be reckoned with and—in this powerful memoir—a first-class storyteller.

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.

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 Dream strikes those chords with a down-to-earth immediacy. It is, in essence, one man’s multi-layered valentine… show more.

I love showbiz biographies full of the inside dope on glamorous, brilliant people, because I’ve always wanted to be one of those glamorous, brilliant people. 

Mike Nichols knew everyone important in the arts, ate at the most fabulous restaurants, traveled to the most luxurious locations, and owned several grand homes. And I am pleased to report that he was frequently anxious and depressed. 

I find it very reassuring to learn that someone who has everything I’ve ever dreamed of is no happier than I am. I know that sounds a little mean, but I never claimed to be perfect.

Renowned cultural historian Thomas Doherty provides a granular, blow-by-blow retelling of the events that led to the Hollywood blacklist. He places particular emphasis on the hearings as a ‘media-political spectacle,’ seeing it as the first such media event of the postwar era. He reexamines the events through a close and careful reading of press and media responses of the time. Less cinema-centric than other accounts, and less mesmerized by key individuals, Doherty gives us a cool, skeptical perspective on what is often an emotive or partisan discourse. There is much detail on how filmmakers, activists, politicians, newspaper and radio figures acted, and for what reasons, and how and why the post-war hearings played out as they did. The result is a sophisticated cultural history of the blacklist era.