Below I’ll give you my selections for the best Hollywood books by a few categories. I will cover these and other great books more in depth later.
- The Story of Hollywood: An Illustrated History (2011)
- The Hollywood Standard: The Complete and Authoritative Guide to Script Format and Style (Hollywood Standard: The Complete & Authoritative Guide to) (2009)
- A Hollywood Deal (Billionaires’ Brides of Convenience Book 1) (Volume 1) (2016)
- Hollywood Heyday: 75 Candid Interviews with Golden Age Legends (2018)
- Hollywood Babylon: The Legendary Underground Classic of Hollywood’s Darkest and Best Kept Secrets (1981)
- Hollywood’s Lost Backlot: 40 Acres of Glamour and Mystery (2018)
- Garson Kanin’s Hollywood (1976)
- Hollywood Secrets and Scandals (2018)
- Hollywood Godfather: The most authentic mafia book you’ll ever read (2019)
- Hollywood (2002)
- Hooked on Hollywood: Discoveries from a Lifetime of Film Fandom (2018)
- The Big Picture: Money and Power in Hollywood (2006)
- Hollywood, Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon — The Case Against Celebrity (2005)
- Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Live of the Stars (2013)
The Story of Hollywood: An Illustrated History (2011)
The Story of Hollywood follows Hollywood from its dusty origins to its glorious rise to stardom. Lavishly illustrated with over 800 vintage images from the author’s private collection, the book tells the complete story of Hollywood including its eventual decline and urban renewal.
The Hollywood Standard: The Complete and Authoritative Guide to Script Format and Style (Hollywood Standard: The Complete & Authoritative Guide to) (2009)
The Hollywood Standard describes in clear, vivid prose and hundreds of examples how to format every element of a screenplay or television script. A reference for everyone who writes for the screen, from the novice to the veteran, this is the dictionary of script format, with instructions for formatting everything from the simplest master scene heading to the most complex and challenging musical underwater dream sequence.
A Hollywood Deal (Billionaires’ Brides of Convenience Book 1) (Volume 1) (2016)
I’m used to cleaning up after my boss, Hollywood superstar and all-around bad boy Ryder Pryce-Reed. Nothing can shock me now–not the countless “humped and dumped” women or the wreckage left in the wake of his wild ways–until he asks me to marry himfor a year.He says it’s strictly so he can claim his beloved grandfather’s painting, but I know there’s more. There’s always more with Ryder.My instincts say no, but he’s offering to take care of the baby in my womb.
Hollywood Heyday: 75 Candid Interviews with Golden Age Legends (2018)
"What audacity!" exclaimed actor Robert Wagner when he heard about the authors’ adolescent exploits in nabbing interviews with Hollywood celebrities. In 1978, Fantle and Johnson, St. Paul teenagers, boarded a plane to meet with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. They had written the stars requesting interviews–and to their amazement, both agreed.
Hollywood Babylon: The Legendary Underground Classic of Hollywood’s Darkest and Best Kept Secrets (1981)
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.
Hollywood’s Lost Backlot: 40 Acres of Glamour and Mystery (2018)
Hollywood is a transitory place. Stars and studios rise and fall. Genres and careers wax and wane. Movies and movie moguls and movie makers and movie palaces are acclaimed and patronized and loved and beloved, and then forgotten. And yet…And yet one place in Southern California, built in the 1920s by (allegedly murdered) producer Thomas Ince, acquired by Cecil B.
Garson Kanin’s Hollywood (1976)
441 PAGES.
Hollywood Secrets and Scandals (2018)
Some of the most amazing secrets from Hollywood you never knew. “Jimmy Stewart really was in love with me.”- Kim Novak“The police accused me of killing Sharon Tate.”- Cass Elliot“I want a vibrator for my birthday.”- Debbie Reynolds“I’m going to throw up. Keep Sonny away.”- Cher“Sue, you’re the terror of the west coast.”- Mario Puzo, Godfather author“I have your balls now, you Nazi, and you’re not getting them back.”- Joan Rivers
Hollywood Godfather: The most authentic mafia book you’ll ever read (2019)
Gianni Russo was a handsome twenty-five-year-old mobster with no acting experience when he walked onto the set of The Godfather and entered Hollywood history. He played Carlo Rizzi, the husband of Connie Corleone, who set up her brother Sonny, played by James Caan, for a hit.
Hollywood (2002)
Hank and his wife, Sarah, agree to write a screenplay, and encounter the strange world of the movie industry.
Hooked on Hollywood: Discoveries from a Lifetime of Film Fandom (2018)
Leonard Maltin is America’s best-known film historian, film reviewer, and author of books that have sold more than 7 million copies. He remains a thought leader on past and present Hollywood through his website www.leonardmaltin.com, and a social media presence that includes an active Facebook page and a Twitter feed with more than 66,000 followers. In Hooked on Hollywood, Maltin opens up his personal archive to take readers on a fascinating journey through film history.
The Big Picture: Money and Power in Hollywood (2006)
In this unprecedented, all-encompassing, and thoroughly entertaining account of the movie business, acclaimed writer Edward Jay Epstein reveals the real magic behind moviemaking: how the studios make their money.Epstein shows that in Hollywood, the only art that matters is the art of the deal: Major films turn huge profits not from the movies themselves but through myriad other enterprises, from video-game spin-offs and soundtracks to fast-food tie-ins, and even theme-park rides.
Hollywood, Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon — The Case Against Celebrity (2005)
Hollywood, Interrupted is a sometimes frightening, occasionally sad, and frequently hysterical odyssey into the darkest realms of showbiz pathology, the endless stream of meltdowns and flameouts, and the inexplicable behavior on the part of show business personalities.
Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Live of the Stars (2013)
Newly discharged from the Marines after World War II, Bowers arrived in Hollywood in 1946. Young, charismatic, and strikingly handsome, he quickly caught the eye of many of the town’s stars and starlets. He began sleeping with some himself, and connecting others with his coterie of young, attractive, and sexually free-spirited friends.
Best Hollywood Books: The Ultimate Collection
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Library Genesis and download some hollywood books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
Tales of a Hollywood Housewife: A Memoir by the First Mrs. Lee Marvin
Author(s): Betty Marvin
ID: 2440830, Publisher: iUniverse, Year: 4 Mar 2010, Size: 5 Mb, Format: epub
Women vs Hollywood
Author(s): Helen O’Hara
ID: 2915500, Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group, Year: 2021, Size: 1 Mb, Format: epub
Hollywood Eden: Electric Guitars, Fast Cars, and the Myth of the California Paradise
Author(s): Joel Selvin
ID: 2966184, Publisher: House of Anansi, Year: 2021, Size: 8 Mb, Format: epub
Please note that this booklist is not absolute. Some books are truly best-sellers according to The New York Times, others are composed by unknown authors. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant links you could recommend? Leave a comment if you have any feedback on the list.