Here are 100 books that Walking with Sam fans have personally recommended if you like
Walking with Sam.
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In 2008, I accidentally started watching The West Wing, and it changed my lifeâleading me ultimately to start writing seriously and then to move to DC, where I lived for ten years. I would not have ever guessed that a TV show could have such an impact, but I repeatedly met people in DC who had similar stories. I wrote an essay about the fandom for my literary journalism class during my MFA, and that became the starting point for my anthology. I interviewed dozens of fellow fans, many of whom had moving stories of the showâs impact on their lives. It was a really special experience.
In my opinion, the character of Amy in The West Wing is vastly underrated. Obviously, I wanted Josh to end up with Donna, but itâs undeniable that Bradley Whitford, who plays Josh, has electric chemistry with Mary-Louise Parker. As well as being a fantastic actor, Parker is a brilliant writer.
This memoir is a collection of letters to important men in her lifeâfrom a taxi driver who picked her up on a difficult day to a teacher at drama school, as well, of course, as some love interests. By turns tender, witty, and almost unbearably sad, itâs a beautifully written book.
The bestselling, wonderfully unconventional, âwarmly conspiratorialâŠseriously goodâ (The New York Times) literary memoir from the award-winning actress that has received fabulous and wide praise. âThere is no one else quite like Mary-Louise ParkerâŠFunny, heartbreaking and profoundâ (Elle).
An extraordinary literary work, Dear Mr. You renders the singular arc of a womanâs life through letters Mary-Louise Parker composes to the men, real and hypothetical, who have informed the person she is today. Beginning with the grandfather she never knew, the letters range from a missive to the beloved priest from her childhood to remembrances of former lovers to an homage toâŠ
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to runâŠ
Becoming a mother rocked my world in countless ways, drawing me to books that explore the raw, unfiltered truth about how challenging motherhood can be. The complexitiesâthe love, guilt, and frustrationâresonate deeply with me. Motherhood is also why I started writing; initially, I wanted to process the overwhelming emotions I was feeling. When I began sharing my writing with friends, their âYeah, me too'sâ made me realize I wasnât alone. I have deep respect for authors who can capture the messiness of motherhood so honestly, and Iâm inspired by their ability to put into words what so many of us experience.
I loved this book's raw, unflinching exploration of a taboo topic: the quiet regret some mothers carry. Through Sadie, a fierce Broadway star and feminist icon, and her daughter Jude, an actress on the brink of her own fame, Reimer paints a portrait that's complex and so intimate itâs almost uncomfortable at times.
I appreciated how neither woman was cast as the villain, and in their struggle, I found I could relate to both of them at different moments. Cleverly structured as a play in six acts, this novel is a beautifully written, compulsive read that asks the hard question: can a woman truly be both a devoted mother and a devoted artist?
Set against the sparkling backdrop of the theater world, this propulsive debut follows the relationship between an actress who refuses to abandon her career and the daughter she chooses to abandon instead.
Sadie Jones, a larger-than-life actress and controversial feminist, never wanted to be a mother. No one feels this more deeply than Jude, the daughter Sadie left behind. While Jude spent her childhood touring with her fatherâs Shakespearian theater company, desperate for validation from the mother she barely knew, Sadie catapulted to fame on the wings of The Mother Actâa scathing one-woman show about motherhood.
I come from a huge Italian (and Irish) family and food was everything; tradition was everything. My mother was also passionate about health and wellness, devouring Prevention Magazine and working out to Jack LaLanne on a little black and white TV in the kitchen. She instilled a love of food in me that runs deep. At 26, diagnosed with terminal cancer, I chose food as my tool to regain my wellness. After recovering, I decided to study, gain knowledge (studying acupuncture and Chinese Medicine and getting my master's in food science and nutrition), and dedicate my life to helping others make their healthiest choices.
I loved this book so much that I finished it and immediately started it over again! Growing up Italian, I could more than relate to what the author was writing about.
His passion for food, Italian living, and family touched every part of my heart. It was as though I was being shown a mirror of how I grew up, how my family cooked and ate, and how we interacted with each other. It was like watching a home movie of my life.
A Guardian book of the year A Times book of the year A Daily Mail book of the year
From award-winning actor and food obsessive Stanley Tucci comes an intimate and charming memoir of life in and out of the kitchen. For Stanley and foodie fans, this is the perfect, irresistible gift.
'It's impossible to read this without becoming ravenous!' -- Nigella Lawson
'It is as infectious as it is delicious, as funny as it is insightful. The only reason to put this book down, is to go cook and eat from it' -- HestonâŠ
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother hadâŠ
Iâve been obsessed with studying the artistic process for over 25 years since I got my degree in Studio Art and Art History at Vanderbilt University. After getting my MFA in Creative Writing, I headed out to Hollywood to produce national television for over twenty years. Iâve worked with many of the greatest actors, filmmakers, and writers of our time and written my own bestselling novels about artists. I read as many books on the artistic process as possible. My mission has always been to ensure that every person knows that they, too, can be artists â creating art isnât just for the âgreatâ, itâs for everyone.
This is probably the most challenging read here, but so worth the effort if you want to dive deep into one of the most unique artistic minds of our time. If youâre not a trained actor, you might not understand all of the nuances here â Mamet is a definite theater guy and doesnât stop down to explain every detail here -- but any artist can learn Mametâs biting, witty, shocking creative tips. I recommend just letting this one wash over you the first time, but if you give yourself to this text and to Mamet, it is sure to give you a new perspective on the way we all create art and hopefully inspire you to delve into some creative expression that you were always too scared to try.Â
The Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, director and teacher has written a blunt, unsparingly honest guide to acting. In True and False David Mamet overturns conventional opinion and tells aspiring actors what they really need to know. He leaves no aspect of acting untouched: how to judge the role, approach the part, work with the playwright; the right way to undertake auditions and the proper approach to agents and the business in general. True and False slaughters a wide range of sacred cows and yet offers an invaluable guide to the acting profession.
My husband of 35 glorious years died of Pancreatic cancer in 2020. In two months, as COVID slammed, we had to put our beloved dog down, my husbandâs lesson horse went hooves up, my husband died, I replaced two HVAC units and a water heater. I am a writer/journalist whose style is conversational. Writing about my grief maelstrom as if telling a friend focused me on the dark humor. My book Horse Sluts and articles in Horse Nation and other equine and/or mature-focused magazines are written in the same, âIâm no expert, but this is my experienceâ POV. I know the tone that helps.
âBat shit is patient.â Simple, clear, dead on to describe the crazy life-clowns that leap from dark corners as I fend off grief... loss.
I Was Better... may not be a âgriefâ book, per se, but Fierstein dances us through the fears, struggles, and losses in his journey to live a life he wants. His quote, âLook back, but donât stareâ felt as though he quoted it for me to help deal with many joyous and painful memories of my husband.
I Was Better... is a tropical island where I could escape the squalls of my life of loss. I relished his musicals, strode the flamboyant streets of New York, and was embraced by Fiersteinâs poignant and dearly funny honesty. His rage against the night was mine too. He and I kept dog paddling â together.
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER âąÂ A poignant and hilarious memoir from the cultural icon, gay rights activist, and four-time Tony Awardâwinning actor and playwright, revealing never-before-told stories of his personal struggles and conflict, of sex and romance, and of his fabled career
Harvey Fiersteinâs legendary career has transported him from community theater in Brooklyn, to the lights of Broadway, to the absurd excesses of Hollywood and back. Heâs received accolades and awards for acting in and/or writing an incredible string of hit plays, films, and TV shows: Hairspray,  Fiddler on the Roof, Mrs. Doubtfire, Independence Day, Cheers, La CageâŠ
Just your friendly neighborhood thriller novelist. When people find out I write books, they inevitably enquire, âReally? Have I read anything of yours?â Well, funny you should ask! Iâve been cranking out stories since I was sixteen but took a couple of decades to finally land a publishing deal for my debut novel Hammerjackand its sequel Prodigal(Bantam Spectra). A lifelong Star Trekfan, Iâve also published the novella âRevenantâ in the collection Seven Deadly Sins (Gallery Books). My latest is the high-tech thriller Candidate Z, available on Amazon.
I have zero fascination with celebrities, but remain a sucker for a showbiz memoir as told by a true raconteur. And though you might never have known it from the pretty-boy reputation cemented firmly by his 80âs era film oeuvre, Rob Lowe ranks right up there with George Hamilton in both his having known pretty much everybody in Hollywood, but also having a great story to tell about each one. At turns self-deprecating, deeply touching, brutally honest, and laugh-out-loud funny, Loweâs Storiesdoesnât dish any dirtâso if thatâs what youâre looking for, you might want to look elsewhere. But if youâd like an inside peek at Hollywood as told by a Gen-X icon in his own words (no ghostwriters here!), you canât go wrong here.
A wryly funny and moving account of an extraordinary life lived almost entirely in the public eye.
Teen idol at fifteen, international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at twenty, and one of Hollywood's top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles his experiences as a painfully misunderstood child actor in Ohio uprooted to the wild counterculture of mid-seventies Malibu, where he embarked on his unrelenting pursuit of a career in Hollywood.
The Outsiders placed Lowe at the birth of the modern youth movement in the entertainment industry. During his time on The West Wing, he witnessed the surrealâŠ
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man sheâŠ
I'm a London-based critic, author, and host whose love affair with film began after seeing The Lion King in the cinema as a kid. I trained as a journalist because I wanted to talk about the world. Since then Iâve been covering film and culture for the likes of Empire Magazine, Time Out, and IGN. I co-host MTV Movies and the weekly film reviews podcast Fade to Black; co-founder of The First Film Club event series and podcast, and am a member of London's Critics' Circle. I'm a voice for gender equality, diversity, and inclusion in the entertainment industry and an advocate for MENA representation as a writer of Tunisian heritage.
Carrie Fisher is a phenomenal writer whose Hollywood upbringing and career makes her insightful voice when it comes to the experience of women in film.
Turning the diaries she kept while shooting Star Wars â playing the iconic Strong Female Character, Princess Leila â into a memoir offers and eye-opening perspective about life as an actress working in a male-dominated world.
Itâs full of humour, self-deprecation, and real vulnerability, as well as juicy tidbits about the production.
When Carrie Fisher discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved - plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naivete, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Now her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon is indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a teenager with an all-consuming crush on her co-star, Harrison Ford. With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher's intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets ofâŠ
I am a writer and historian, specialising in the early-Medieval period and the fractious but fruitful encounter between the Christian and Islamic worlds. My fiction is informed by my non-fiction work: itâs a great help to have written actual histories of Northumbria in collaboration with some of the foremost archaeologists working on the period. I regard my work as the imaginative application of what we can learn through history to stories and the books I have selected all do this through the extraordinarily varied talents of their authors. I hope you will enjoy them!
The final sentence of The Mask of Apollo has haunted me for decades since I first read the book in my teens. When I read it again, many years later, I discovered that the story is as moving as I remembered. Renault weaves a fascinating re-creation of classical Greek theatre with Platoâs attempt to tutor a true philosopher king in the kingdom of Syracuse. But itâs the final chapter, after Platoâs death, that raises the book to the level of tragedy. For then we meet the young Alexander, already almost god-like in his charisma, a fire seeking fuel for its burning. Alexander burns through the world seeking it, but what he is looking for in the world has already left it: a broken Plato has already died.
Set in fourth-century B.C. Greece, The Mask of Apollo is narrated by Nikeratos, a tragic actor who takes with him on all his travels a gold mask of Apollo, a relic of the theatre's golden age, which is now past. At first his mascot, the mask gradually becomes his conscience, and he refers to it his gravest decisions, when he finds himself at the centre of a political crisis in which the philosopher Plato is also involved. Much of the action is set in Syracuse, where Plato's friend Dion is trying to persuade the young tyrant Dionysios the Younger toâŠ
Iâve been fascinated by crime ever since I was a junior reporter working on a daily newspaper and covered a huge number of court cases. Iâve written all my working life and turned to crime writing after reaching the final of a UK TV channelâs Search for a New Crime Writer competition. Iâve built up contacts within the police force during my career which has enabled me to write Storm Deaths, the first in a series of police procedural crime novels. Iâve seen so many films and TV shows that donât follow the proper procedure, so I ensure that all my writing is as authentic as possible.Â
Few characters in crime fiction are as charismatic as Charles Paris, a struggling actor whose career has more ups and downs than a seesaw. Simon Brett presents us with a fascinating character, a middle-aged man who is endearing even though he is a drunk and a womaniser.Â
There is always a murder whether Paris is acting in weekly rep or has a cameo role in a film. So Much Blood involves Paris appearing at the world-famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Brett skilfully weaves in the drama of putting on a show and the dynamism of the Scottish city with Parisâ occasionally amateurish sleuthing as he tries to uncover who committed the crime. Excellent entertainment.
Appearing in his own one-man show on Thomas Hood at the Edinburgh Festival, middle-aged actor Charles Paris finds himself falling for a gorgeous young girl with navy-blue eyes. He also finds himself being dragged into a complex murder investigation involving the death of a fading pop star, a bomb scare in Holyrood Palace and a suicide leap from the top of the Rock.
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the worldâs most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the bookâŠ
As a brainy, bullied Queer theater kid, I was 14 before I ever saw anyone like myself onstage or onscreen. ThenâWhamâin June of 1980 I sawA Chorus Lineon Broadway and Fame at the movies. But there werenât any books that showed the theater life as it was actually lived. When I published my love letter to my high school theater friends in 2004, no one had written a novel about our kind. Today, as someone whoâs managed to make a living as a writer-director of musicals, I strive to share the whole truth with the young artists I mentor.Â
If youâve ever seen Billy Porter werk the red carpet, you know he doesnât hold anything back. His memoir is no exception. And while the challenges heâs faced as a Black, Queer person are as unique as his talent, every theatrer-maker can identify with his dreams, his passions, and his disappointments. I so admire his courage in calling out hypocrisy in our business while simultaneously demonstrating the grace to call in for healing.Â
From the incomparable Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award winner, a powerful and revealing autobiography about race, sexuality, and art
It's easy to be yourself when who and what you are is in vogue. But growing up Black and gay in America has never been easy. Before Billy Porter was slaying red carpets and giving an iconic performance in the celebrated TV show Pose; before he was the Tony Award-winning star of Broadway's Kinky Boots; and before he was an acclaimed recording artist, actor, playwright, and all-around diva, Porter was a young boy who didn't fit in. At five years oldâŠ
