Dan

  1. Act One

    Staff Pick Review:
    Wed, Jun 19, 2013
    Act One
    Link to this book

    Moss Hart was an enormously successful playwright (“You Can’t Take It With You,” “The Man Who Came to Dinner”), screenwriter (“A Star is Born”), and stage director (“My Fair Lady,” “Camelot”), but this classic memoir deals not with those masterworks, but with his beginnings.  It tells the tale of his impoverished New York childhood and the steps leading to his first success, a collaboration with the legendary George S. Kaufmann.  This is one of the great memoirs of the era and a must read for anyone interested in theater.

  2. The Name Above the Title

    Staff Pick Review:
    Wed, Apr 24, 2013
    The Name Above the Title
    Link to this book

    In my opinion, this is the best book ever written about Hollywood and the making of movies.  It’s the autobiography of Frank Capra, the director of such classic films as It Happened One Night, Mr.

  3. The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill

    Staff Pick Review:
    Wed, Feb 27, 2013
    The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill - Visions of Glory, 1874-1932 (1983)
    The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill - Alone, 1932-1940 (1988)
    Link to this book

    Dozens, if not hundreds, of biographies have been written about Winston Churchill, but none are as insightful, or as gracefully written, as this brilliant work by William Manchester. The book is in two parts: Visions of Glory, which covers the first 58 years of Churchill’s life; and Alone, detailing the 1930s, when Churchill was out of government.

  4. Team of Rivals

    Staff Pick Review:
    Wed, Jan 2, 2013
    Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2005)
    Link to this book

    In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was a former one-term congressman and two-time failed senate candidate from Illinois. Despite this feeble resume, he managed to outmaneuver the top leaders of the Republican party—all far more experienced and better known than Lincoln—and win the nomination for president. Once elected, and as the southern states began pulling out of the Union, Lincoln selected these same political rivals as the members of his new cabinet.

  5. A Peculiar Treasure

    Staff Pick Review:
    Mon, Nov 26, 2012
    A Peculiar Treasure (1939)
    Link to this book

    From the 1920s to the 1960s, Edna Ferber was one of America’s most popular writers, turning out a string of best-selling novels, such as So Big (Pulitzer Prize winner), Show Boat, Come and Get It, and Giant, many of which became equally successful plays and films. Ferber herself also wrote successful plays (Stage Door, The Royal Family) with theatrical legend George S. Kauffmann, and was peripheral member of the famed Algonquin Round Table of notable wits.

  6. Thank You for Smoking

    Staff Pick Review:
    Wed, Oct 17, 2012
    Thank You for Smoking (1994)
    Link to this book

    The main character of this novel is one of the most despised people in America: he’s a lobbyist for the smoking industry. He’s not friendless, however. His frequent lunch companions include the chief representatives for the gun industry and the alcohol lobby. They privately refer to themselves as “The MOD Squad” (as in Merchants of Death). In this hilarious novel, Buckley not only skewers the tobacco industry, but Washington, Hollywood, the press, and modern society in general. The book is also the source of an excellent movie of the same name.

  7. George Gershwin

    Mon, Sep 10, 2012
    George Gershwin: An Intimate Biography (2009)
    Link to this book

    When informed that George Gershwin had died, the novelist John O’Hara wrote, “I don’t have to believe it if I don’t want to.” Gershwin was only 38 at the time of his death, and had been widely seen as the future of American music.

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