Casablanca: Behind The Scenes – Harlan Lebo, 1992 ★★★

Making Hollywood Hokum for the Ages

Watching Casablanca, it’s easy to grasp its elemental appeal. Snappy dialogue, compelling characters, a suspense-rich environment, beautiful images, a wow finish. But how did it all come to be? Harlan Lebo examines the film’s origins and lasting success in this 1992 book.

As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner, 1930 ★½

Adrift with the Bundrens

“Pa never does nothing, Sis will do anything for an abortion, my brothers are all deranged, and my mother is a fish.” Sounds like a Jerry Springer episode, right?

The fifth novel by William Faulkner, and the third set in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, As I Lay Dying is famous for its subjective-perspective, stream-of-consciousness narration. It might be just as notable for a unique set of low-life characters who dare you to like any of them once you manage to work out what is happening. I still flail futilely in both departments.

Mary Through The Centuries – Jaroslav Pelikan, 1996 ★★

Immaculate, Maybe; Inflexible, Never

Jesus may be the basis of Christianity, Paul its founder, and Peter its rock, but if there is one enigma in the faith’s hierarchy, it is neither man nor God but rather a woman who stands alone not only for her proximity to divinity, but for her singular involvement in its creation.

The Black Dahlia – James Ellroy, 1987 ★★½

Cruising for Danger with James Ellroy

James Ellroy is the most dangerous man in fiction, sometimes even to himself.

In this, the novel that made him what he is, Ellroy beats himself up over the real-life death of his mother by recasting her as the mystery woman of the novel’s title and delving into both the gruesome facts of her torture-slaying and the dark obsession she triggers in our two main male characters, Ellroy stand-ins both. It was Ellroy’s seventh crime-fiction novel; this time it was personal: