100 Books Like Hollywood Down Under

This is an old but indispensable book that gives a panoramic overview of the history of Australian cinema, ending with the important cinema of the 1970s Film Revival.

I read this coffee table edition all the way through and loved the cinema stills and fabulous information on every page. One for the history of Australian cinema enthusiasts.

Two experts in the field provide a great account of Australian film that, at the time, uniquely took a genre approach. There are chapters on comedy, adventure, teen, horror, and art films, to name a few.

In discussing genres, this excellent account foregrounds the films themselves, rather than the history of the Australian film industry. To which genre does your favorite Australian film belong?

This rewarding little book asks and answers the question: what happened to Australian cinema after the landmark Mabo decision on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land rights overturned the colonial doctrine of terra nullius?

Theoretically informed and sensitively written, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the intertwined relationship between history and cinema following a pivotal event in the nation’s journey toward reconciliation.

Australian women have been involved in the creation of cinema from the beginning.

I loved this book because it was one of the few books around at the time that seriously examined this aspect of women in cinema from a range of different perspectives, including from the filmmakers themselves. Can you name the film referenced on the cover? (A: Looking for Alibrandi–a great school film and so much more!)

Chion’s book is seminal in the study of film sound (not just music). He challenges the orthodoxy of favoring the visual aspects of film when we talk about it, arguing that we need to consider the sound of a film as well as its images.

He says that we don’t just watch films; we “audio-view” them. Chion draws his examples from an extraordinarily wide range of films. On the same page he might go from Godard to Indiana Jones to Singin’ in the Rain.

He doesn’t judge: if a popular action film is the best example for a point about sound-image relationships, he uses it. Chion introduces a lot of new terminology, but it is all carefully explained and illustrated with examples.

No list of important books on Hollywood is complete without a reference to Kevin Brownlow.

Kevin was there in the 1960s and 1970s, when many of the silent-era Hollywood stars were still alive. He met and interviewed them all. His book brings that era to life in a way that no other book or film has been able to accomplish. Kevin is also a major supporter of other authors.

He was kind enough to blurb two of my books. He also read drafts of my Warner Brothers book – twice! Each time with increasingly helpful, thoughtful, and supportive feedback. Kevin is the one historian that every film historian is in debt to. I don’t think Kevin knows how important he is, but he certainly deserves a spot on my list. 

To me, this book is a classic in the realm of personal finance for a reason. It is the clearest explanation of how money is not actually about money; if you’re actually living by your values and seeking a life that makes you feel truly fulfilled, the point of working is to earn enough money to live on and take care of your future with, while being able to spend the majority of your time doing what you actually enjoy.

I love that this book is centered around finding a purpose without tying that purpose to how you earn a living. It also gives really clear suggestions for long-term investing, and I was happy to see that updated for our current times in the newest edition. 

Even before Archibald Edmund Filby embarked on his famous African expeditions, he took advantage of a government-sponsored scheme to migrate to Australia. It was 1921 and his daredevil nature soon had him performing reckless feats as a buckjumper in a popular circus rodeo. Whilst trekking through this vast continent, he embraced the opportunity to become a jockey, photographer, actor, pilot, car salesman, and pearl diver.

Not only was A E Filby a famous British explorer, but he was also my Uncle Archie. What a shame he never saw his memoirs published before his death in 1942.

I read this story in my teens and as a result, spent years wanting to join the navy. (That did wear off!) Having read it again recently, it seems a much darker story than I had remembered. But the mystery at its heart won’t let you go. Nevil Shute was a great storyteller and like many writers of his generation had many experiences to draw on. The story is quite slow-moving, but poignant—heartbreaking in fact. Gradually, he unfolds the mystery of Jessie Proctor, an Englishwoman working for a family in Australia. It begins with Jessie’s suicide and we uncover the events that have haunted this young, ex-servicewoman’s life. As Shute says, "a war can go on killing people for a long time after it’s all over."  

This really is quite an extraordinary book, published on 1 January 1999. Alice Thomson is a British journalist who came to Australia to write a history of the overland telegraph line connecting Darwin to Adelaide. The line was built by her great-grandfather Charles Todd, a young English engineer. It is partly a touching love story, part a great historical narrative, and part a fascinating travel book. To do her research, Alice Thomson and her husband came to Australia and drove the length of the old telegraph line, picking up anecdotes and atmosphere along the way. As an aside, I mention that a seamless line of women in Alice Thomson’s family have borne the name Alice. Alice Springs was named after Charles Todd’s young wife Alice. The dry river that runs through Alice Springs is called the Todd River.