94 Books Like Clara Bow

While Taylor Swift has not written a song about Isabel Allende or her daughter Paula, it may only be a matter of time.

Taylor is known for having a strong, tight-knit relationship with her mother, Andrea. If anyone can write about the tethers and ties that weave through a mother-daughter relationship with such precise detail and sorrowing pain, it is Isabel Allende.

Paula is a memoir about loss and the story about how Isabel lost her adult daughter to cancer. It is the only book to ever make me sob-cry. Once I picked it up, I couldn’t put it down. I felt Isabel’s pain deep in the depths of my soul in a similar light as when I listen to the song “Soon You’ll Get Better” on her Lover album, which Taylor Swift wrote about her mother’s treatment for cancer.

Who doesn’t love seedy stories about wealth, excess, and defiance of social norms – especially when those norms relate to women?

This book has it all by telling the story of Rebekah Harkness, a woman who went from nothing to Standard Oil heiress, throwing lavish parties and elaborate ballets along the way. Rebekah became Taylor Swift’s muse in the song “The Greatest American Dynasty” on her Folklore album, and Taylor even bought Rebekah’s Holiday House in Rhode Island, which she still owns today.

Once I started this book, the storyline of a misunderstood, dramatic woman being blamed for everything that went wrong around her made it impossible to put down!

I loved this book because it is a story that reclaims the tattered image of a bold and brave woman, Idina Sackville, as re-told by her great-granddaughter, Frances Osborne.

The Bolter tells a complete tale of a determined woman unwilling to be tamed by high-society rules but rather singularly interested in pursuing her own interests in love, passion, and life. Taylor Swift fans believe that her song, “The Bolter” from her album, The Tortured Poets Department, is directly inspired by Idina Sackville.

I read until the end because I was dying to know what became of Idina and how her legacy grew from socialite-gone-wrong to the understudied drive of a determined woman.

Time and again, history repeats itself.

Just as Clara Bow, Idina Sackville, and Rebekah Harkness lived wildly glamour lives in the public eye continually shamed for any behavior not fitting for a young woman’s reputation, this book gave me a unique perspective into the bold, brave strength of Elizabeth Taylor – whose parents were from Kansas of all places (although from a time before the Kansas City Chiefs reign). I could not put this book down because the continual shifts in Liz Taylor’s personal and professional life were jarring, inspiring, and mesmerizing.

I started this book to understand better what Taylor Swift saw in Elizabeth Taylor, using her for inspiration in a song titled “Elizabeth Taylor” on The Life of a Showgirl album. I stayed because I needed to know how it ended.

There have been many books written about Marilyn Monroe, and I have paid tribute to her in my own celebrity book but I feel that The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe best explains the complex life of the ultimate sex symbol. Author J. Randy Taraborrelli's biography reveals that Marilyn, whose grandmother and mother were both committed to mental asylums, lived with the fear of possible impending madness.

I was also interested in details of Marilyn's relationship with the Kennedys—Bobby, Jack, and Pat Lawford Kennedy. These could have played a big part in her death.

First of all, Nia Vardalos is just hilarious. She could write an Ikea assembly brochure and it would probably be side-splitting. But in the book, she tells about being a rising star (a great story on its own) who had it all – except a baby. After a grueling battle with infertility, she eventually came around to the idea of adoption, and started to learn more about the fost-adopt process of taking an older child who is unlikely to reunite with their original family. With great heart, she tells the roller-coaster story of bringing a 3-year-old with attachment challenges into her life—and the inevitable universality of motherhood. “Nothing prepared me for the life I would feel for my child. Nothing prepared me for how quickly it happened for me. And here’s what I just figure out now: no one is ever prepared. In a way, we’re all instant moms.” She’s… show more.

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.  

The Secret Conversations is a unique and intimate look into the life of legendary Hollywood actress, Ava Gardner. While writing my own book, this book helped me dive deeper into the head of a character like Rebekah Harkness. Similar to Rebekah (and our girl Tay), Ava was a tabloid darling who set out to live her best life. Fun Facts: Ava once married (and divorced) Frank Sinatra and eventually served as inspiration behind Taylor Jenkins Reid’s protagonist in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. During a GQ interview, Taylor Swift explained how The Secret Conversations inspired the concept for her "Wildest Dreams" music video.

I’ve added this book to this list because I love Joan Crawford. I love Hollywood and all the gossip, glitz, and glamor that goes along with it.

This particular story is told by her daughter Christina about how a photograph is perceived to be happy, but what really happened, as told by the author, is two different stories.

A true vaudeville legend personality exposed, which makes it a great beach read.

I’ve thought of Sharon Stone as a rebel since seeing her breakthrough film Basic Instinct. Every interview I’d read since then convinced me that I was right. This memoir shows why. The title comes from her life-and-death fight with a brain aneurysm which derailed her film career but not her life. Right off the bat, Stone’s memoir makes the distinction between lace-curtain Irish and kitchen-sink Irish, her family standing on the kitchen sink side. This class distinction and loyalty to her roots in Pennsylvania are part of her honesty, her fight against the phoniness of the film industry, and the appeal of this story. It’s also her strength as her family comes to her side when her career is jettisoned by serious illness.