Saturday, April 30, 2011

Richard Schickel's 5 favorite books

Richard Schickel is a film historian, filmmaker, and film critic. He is the author of 37 books and the director-writer-producer of dozens of film and television documentaries largely about film makers and about movie history.

Among his best known books are: The Disney Version; D.W. Griffith: An American Life; Intimate Strangers: The Culture of Celebrity; Clint Eastwood: A Biography; and, Good Morning, Mr. Zip Zip Zip (a memoir).

Schickel's most recent title is Conversations with Scorsese.

One of his five favorite books, as told to The Week magazine:
Arthur & George by Julian Barnes

Based on the true story of how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle rescued an Anglo-Indian barrister falsely accused of a heinous crime, Barnes’s novel is a study both of marvelously contrasting characters and of turn-of-the-century English society. It’s a massive book that reads with the addictive quickness of a detective story, which it partly is. Barnes is one of our deftest and most appealing writers.
Read about the Hollywood novel on Schickel's list.

Also see: Richard Schickel's 5 best show-biz biographies.

--Marshal Zeringue