The Hollywood Life A Reading List

The Hollywood Life A Reading List This round of the  Riot Recommendation is sponsored by  Actors Anonymous  by James Franco. The actors in James Franco’s brilliant debut novel include a McDonald’s drive-thru operator who spends his shift trying on accents; an ex-child star recalling a massive beachside bacchanal; hospital volunteers and Midwestern transplants; a vampire flick starlet who discovers a cryptic book written by a famous actor gone AWOL; and the ghost of River Phoenix. Then there’s Franco himself, who prowls backstage, peering out between the lines-before taking the stage with fascinating meditations on his art, along with nightmarish tales of excess. “Hollywood has always been a private club,” he writes. “I open the gates. I say welcome. I say,  Look inside.” Told in a dizzying array of styles-from lyric essays and disarming testimonials to hilariously rambling text messages and ghostly footnotes-and loosely modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous’s  Twelve  Steps  and  Twelve Traditions,Actors Anonymous  is an intense, wild ride into the dark heart of celebrity. _________________________ Readers have been fascinated by celebrity since long before TMZ was a glimmer in Harvey Levin’s eye. Hollywoodâ€"the glamor, the scandals, the scads of beautiful peopleâ€"captures the imagination and just begs to be the backdrop for all kinds of stories. In this Riot Rec, we asked you to share your favorite novels about Hollywood and celebrity. You came up with quite a list! _________________________ Fiction The Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West The Love Song of Jonny Valentine  by Teddy Wayne The Next Best Thing  by Jennifer Weiner Beautiful Ruins  by Jess Walter Valley of the Dolls   by Jacqueline Susann The Last Tycoon  by F. Scott Fitzgerald The Player  by Michael Tolkin Hollywood  by Charles Bukowski Until I Find You  by John Irving The Loved One  by Evelyn Waugh Postcards from the Edge  by Carrie Fisher Laura Lamonts Life in Pictures  by Emma Straub Hollywood Wives  by Jackie Collins Drama Tales From Hollywood   by Christopher Hampton Sweet Bird of Youth  by Tennessee Williams Nonfiction   Hollywood Animal and  The Devils Guide to Hollywood  by Joe Eszterhas The Kid Stays In The Picture by Robert Evans Youll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again by Julia Phillips Bring on the Empty Horses  and  The Moons a Balloon    by David Niven Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise  by Sam Irvin Mommie Dearest by Christina Crawford The Kid Stays in the Picture  by Robert Evans __________________________ Sign up for our newsletter  to have the best of Book Riot delivered straight to your inbox every week. No spam. We promise. To keep up with Book Riot on a daily basis,  follow us on Twitter,  like us  on Facebook,  and subscribe to the Book Riot podcast in  iTunes  or via  RSS.  So much bookish goodnessâ€"all day, every day.