100 Books Like This Is a Book

This is the guy who wrote Deeper Thoughts and some of the best sketches on Saturday Night Live. He is a regular in The New Yorker and American Bystander and one of our generation’s finest humorists. This collection I feel is his best yet. I read a passage before I go to sleep to deal with this crazy world.

Possibly the most underrated cartoonist in the world. Everyone knows his work from Seinfeld and The Simpsons––I’m not overstating this is a comic genius. This book attempts to make sense out of this disastrous period in our history through his unique drawings and visual puns. This book is a Master Class in modern editorial cartooning.  

Mike Sacks is an authority on comedy and scholar who created two volumes which are a Comedy Bible for any humorist, interviewing the funniest people from the last fifty years. This is a must-read for any comedy geek. The other volume is And Here’s the Kicker. But wait, that’s all, as they say. Sacks has also become the king of kitsch producing a series of books mocking pop culture (Slouchers, Passable In Pink, Randy! and Stinker Lets Loose!)

The most comprehensive modern joke book by a joke encyclopedia, Jessica Delfino. This is more a reference book for joke lovers and an ideal gift for that uncle and dad who thinks there are hilarious but really need a hand in the material department. 

Peter Sis is an acclaimed international writer, artist, and filmmaker. He’s created several award-winning children’s books. In The Three Golden Keys, Sis recaptures his lost childhood in Prague and takes the reader on a dark, mysterious adventure through Prague to find the three keys that will unlock the three rusty padlocks of his childhood home and of his own childhood memories.

I like his art more than his storytelling which is often so personal as to be cryptic. So why am I recommending this book? Because his illustrations of Prague are so beautifully detailed, surreal, and mysterious. It’s a work of art that’s personal, poignant, and poetic. It’s a gorgeous book but perhaps enjoyed by adults more than children.

Because this book concentrates on only six 1939 movies – Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stagecoach, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Adams is able to go into much more detail about the making of each film and the critical reaction each received. I'd be hard-pressed to pick only six movies from that eventful year and movie fans will disagree with Vieira's choices somewhere down the line. But once you get past that, this book is filled with important information and plenty of trivial details that it is a great read.

Ted Sennett is one of the most prolific and widely-read writers about Hollywood and this book on 1939 is one of his very best works. It is filled (one might even say, stuffed) with behind-the-scenes stories. The writing is sometimes critical and analytical rather than gushing as in some of Sennett's many coffee table books. He concentrates on only seventeen 1939 movies so one doesn't get a full picture of that amazing year of movies. It's good to see some lesser-known classics like Midnight and Angels Have Wings included in the seventeen.

When I first read this years ago, it struck me as one of the great books about directing—Steven Spielberg’s ingenuity is a major focus. Revisiting it today, I realize it’s equally valuable as a screenwriting resource because serving a director’s vision is a huge part of the screenwriting life.

As Gottlieb recounts, making Jaws wasn’t stressful just because the mechanical shark kept malfunctioning but because of the pressure Spielberg was under to transform a pulpy bestseller into a crowd-pleasing spectacle. Gottlieb, the third writer to work on the project, offers his unique perspective on the all-too-common scenario of starting a production without a finished script.

Every time I return to this book, I discover another insight about screenwriting, about filmmaking, and about creativity.

Possibly my favorite book ever (only time will tell) this novel is a fever dream of Ike “Vikar” Jerome’s journey into Hollywood starting in 1969 and expanding over a decade.

With a tattoo of Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor from A Place in the Sun on his bald head, this novel reads like Forrest Gump in the way that Vikar shows up at historical moments in Hollywood’s golden age, making friends with thinly veiled Hollywood titans as they get their start in the film industry. 

It might seem presumptuous to call 50 films from 1939 "classics" but I agree with Vieira that these 50 movies deserve that distinction. This book is filled with all the pertinent information, fun facts, and great visuals. Movie stills, behind-the-scenes candid photos, portraits, and poster art make this a memorable volume to treasure. I particularly like the attention Vieira gives to the many outstanding movie directors working in 1939.