How do great writers do it? From James M. Cain's hard-nosed observation that "writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It's not all inspirational," to Joan Didion's account of how she composes a book--"I constant
Billy Wilder won two Oscars - as co-screenwriter and director - for this mordant comedy about getting ahead in the corporate world. Jack Lemmon played the 'schnook' who lends out his apartment for his boss's sexual trysts, only to fall in love with the bo
Sunset Boulevard (1950) is one of the most famous films in the history of Hollywood, and perhaps no film better represents Hollywood's vision of itself. Billy Wilder collaborated on the screenplay with the very able Charles Brackett, and with D. M. Marshm
Distinguished by its precision, its graceful use of language, and its resonant depth, the innovative style of Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) radically altered literary conventions and influenced generations of writers. In The Sun
A hero to millions who adored his portrayals of Robin Hood and Fletcher Christian, Errol Flynn (1909-59) lived a life that far surpassed any adventure he ever acted out on screen: exotic travels, criminal exploits, passionate love affairs, violent confron
Although Katherine Mansfield was closely associated with D.H. Lawrence and something of a rival of Virginia Woolf, her stories suggest someone writing in a different era and in a vastly different English. Her language is as transparent as clean glass, yet
This biography of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), a giant of American literature who invented both the horror and detective genres, is a portrait of extremes: a disinherited heir, a brilliant but exploited author and editor, a man who veered radically from t
A biography of one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century that includes new material. Fitzgerald rose to fame in his 20s with stories chronicling the upheaval of manners and morals in the Jazz Age, and with his wife Zelda blurred the line be
As Chandler's last novel opens, Philip Marlowe meets a well-endowed redhead as she disembarks from the Super Chief and leads him to the California coast to solve a tale of big money and, of course, murder."Chandler wrote like a slumming angel and invested
