Fans pick 100 books like The Immediate Experience

It all goes back to growing up in the 1970s, when PBS would show the same handful of classic foreign movies over and over—Bergman, Truffaut, Fellini. And there was the rest of TV, too, where I discovered John Ford, Orson Welles, Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, and much more. On the late late show, you could usually find Casablanca. I saw Kubrick’s 2001 a few years after it came out and was knocked out by the first mainstream movie that asked its viewers to wonder—to actively speculate in awestruck fashion about what was happening on screen. The movies have always been a passion for me. The movie screen is where we dream and float away and sink within ourselves all at once. As the critic David Thomson put it, “Not even heroin or the supernatural ever went this far.”

I have loved classic Hollywood movies since childhood, especially the legendary actresses of the era. My grandmother nurtured this love, taking me to the video stores to rent movies and the library to read biographies and books about actresses and Old Hollywood. Now, I am a professor of film history at Chapman University, where I teach classes on American cinema and women in film. Still, my passion for female-centered classic Hollywood movies remains strong. I have compiled a list showing the multi-faceted ways that women have participated in Hollywood cinema during its first century.

I have taught philosophy and film for almost 40 years, first at Ohio State and then at Notre Dame. My focus had been German cinema, but I was drawn to Hitchcock for three reasons: first, he received his origins in Weimar Germany and owes much to German expressionism; second, his films are so cinematically beautiful and effective that I began teaching them again and again, and the students loved them; finally, I thought it worthwhile and a fun project to address the extent to which his films raise deep and engaging philosophical questions.

It all goes back to growing up in the 1970s, when PBS would show the same handful of classic foreign movies over and over—Bergman, Truffaut, Fellini. And there was the rest of TV, too, where I discovered John Ford, Orson Welles, Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, and much more. On the late late show, you could usually find Casablanca. I saw Kubrick’s 2001 a few years after it came out and was knocked out by the first mainstream movie that asked its viewers to wonder—to actively speculate in awestruck fashion about what was happening on screen. The movies have always been a passion for me. The movie screen is where we dream and float away and sink within ourselves all at once. As the critic David Thomson put it, “Not even heroin or the supernatural ever went this far.”

I am currently the features editor at Input, a website about tech and culture. Earlier in my career, I worked at the now-defunct music magazine Blender, for which I wrote an oral history of Sub Pop, the Seattle label that put out early records by the likes of Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney. That article was the basis of my book for Everybody Loves Our Town. I’m also a widely published freelancer, with pieces in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Wired, WSJ. Magazine, Rolling Stone, and many other outlets.

I’m the author of Is Superman Circumcised? The Complete Jewish History of the World's Greatest Hero, which won the 2021 Diagram Prize, and The Darkness in Lee's Closet and the Others Waiting There. I write about pop culture for The Forward and CNN.com. My writing has appeared in a range of publications, including New York Daily News, Jerusalem Post, and Philosophy Now. I’ve taught English and writing at the City University of New York and am a former writer-in-residence fellow at the New York Public Library.

I got hooked on superheroes from a very early age. My mom grew up in the Golden Age of comics and loved superheroes. She'd bring home a random assortment of adventures—Batman, Iron Man, Flash, Avengers, Justice League, Iron Fist, Captain America. I was especially keen on the martial arts mayhem so many could bring to bear. That got me started (and I've never stopped since) in martial arts as a teen and took me into a career in science. I bring my own interest, my knowledge of martial arts, and my extensive career and training as a sensorimotor neuroscientist as I explore the science of human achievement through the lens of comic book superheroes.

In a life that has thus far led from reader and fan to writers’ assistant to author and journalist to television story writer to editor, these are the books that helped define my passions for storytelling worlds as well as the path of my career and informed me along the way. 

I wrote Billy Balloon in fourth grade for a writing exercise. I remember the teacher reading it to the whole class. I was filled with pride. Then through the years I’d revisit the story and think about getting it published. Many years later, with the support and encouragement from my family, I finally decided to go through with it. We then went from wanting to publish one book to building a brand similar to Curious George and Thomas the Train. We had such a great experience and fun time we also decided to share the adventure with others. We invite readers to submit ideas for other books in the Billy Balloon series through our website.