What books are on your shelf?

Scoopicman

Scoopicman

So, what do you have?


No, I don't read Stephen King novels, but if Katie Couric asked me what I read, this is what I would fess up to. I have a huge collection of sci-fi/horror movie books, as well as filmmaking, music reading. I took some pics:

These are some big, heavy hardbacks that you could weight train with - Special Effects and Horror/Sci-fi cinema. As a boy (13 or 14), I used to put these in a suitcase, so I could take them to friends' houses. Look closely, and you can see Tom Savini (Bizarro, Grande Illusions 2) and Dick Smith makeup books.


FX, Horror movie hardbacks


More horror/sci-fi film books



Yes, you will recognize some of these. I mean, doesn't everybody have this Robert Rodriguez book on raising movie money through experimental drug testing???


Film various


Before the internet, I used to get the Hollywood Blue Book, every other year.

Film various 2


I still have old Film Threat magazines, before Chris Gore started writing these Festival Guides.

Film various 3


EDIT: This thread is taking a while to load, so I converted the pics to links.
 
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You've got to have an American Cinematographer Manual! (If you live in America, that is.)

Film, Music books


Film, Music, Technical books




More than 20 years of Fangoria Magazine.


Shelf full of Mags, Books



Others not pictured:

Miscellanous others - Quentin Tarantino, etc.
25 years of Keyboard Magazine and Electronic Musician.
10 years of Future Music and Sound On Sound.
Many instrument and software manuals
Many non-fiction paperbacks about UFOs, Bigfoot, Lake Monsters, Bermuda Triangle, etc. (Great fodder for story writing.)
Gary Larson Far Side books
Videogaming mags
Production Directories
Tons of STAR WARS, ALIEN(S), TERMINATOR and other movie books in boxes.

Admittedly, I read very little fiction. I'm interested in movies and not really into novels.
 
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Please read some Stephen King! The man is an incredible writer! I've read almost everything he's written, I just can't bring myself to start 'The Stand' (I own it, but eveytime I pick it up I realise it's got about 6,000,000 pages!).

'Rebel Without a Crew' was the first book on moviemaking I bought. I've since bought 'Splatter Flicks' by Sara Caldwell and 'Filmmakers Book of the Dead' by Danny Draven. Both are interesting reads, if you're interested in horror film production.

I think Father Christmas is bringing me 'Make Your Own Damn Movie' by Lloyd Kaufmann and 'The DV Rebel's Guide' by Stu Maschwitz this year. Anybody know if these are any good? I could always write Santa another letter.

Looking at it now, i've got about twenty books all about 'The X-Files'!
 
mad_hatter said:
Please read some Stephen King! The man is an incredible writer! I've read almost everything he's written, I just can't bring myself to start 'The Stand' (I own it, but eveytime I pick it up I realise it's got about 6,000,000 pages!).
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I actually have several of his books, but the man has a way of taking me out of story of the present with the amount of backstory he does, when you meet a new character.



I think Father Christmas is bringing me 'Make Your Own Damn Movie' by Lloyd Kaufmann and 'The DV Rebel's Guide' by Stu Maschwitz this year. Anybody know if these are any good?
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I have the DV Rebel's Guide, but it's not in those pictures. It's very good, but much of what is presented in it depends on you knowing and using After Effects. I knew when he started talking about Airsoft guns, Magic Bullet and After Effects that I would like it.
 
... ive got comic books ... BATMAN NERDS UNITEEEEEEEE

i also got some quirky lil fiction paperbacks like extremely loud and incredibly close ( some hot creative writing sub recommended ) but strangely enough i only bought one film making book called $30 film school which covers alot of stuff but the authors work is unimpressive really and its a little outdated ( plus the author comes off as a anti snob - snob if you know what i mean )

OH i did get the dark knight script for xmas a while back ... just thought u should know
 
My shelves are currently very bare. I lost over 800 books in "The Great Studio Flood of April '07". Lots of sci-fi with healthy doses of the classics, music & audio technical books, religion, philosophy, the sciences, etc. I also lost over 1,000 LPs and 25 years of touring recordings and memorabilia, not to mention the $100k in damages to my studio.

There were four more sets of shelves to the left of the two in the picture. Yeah, the books stayed on the shelves, but they'd soaked in sewage for 12+ hours and were unsalvageable.

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The only bookshelf that I can see from my computer only has Slaughterhouse 5 and Le Clezio's The Interrogation.

Behind my back we have the Buy-To-Let Bible, The Money Diet, The Daily Mail Tax Guide, Understanding Tax for Small Businesses, Robert Peston's Who Runs Britain? and Setting Up a Limited Company.... kind of a theme going there....

Not in my library at the moment, so I look like a bit of a money nut... :P
 
My shelf is pretty eclectic. I provided links where possible.


I've got pulitzer prize winners like The Road, Confederacy of Dunces, and the Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao on the same shelf as pulp stuff like early Chesbro novels, and Graphic novels (Bone, Watchmen, early TMNT stuff). Lots of Twain, McCarthy, and Palanhuik, but my only Steven King is "On Writing".

I must have 3 books about Clint Eastwood.

I have no hard copies of any scripts.

I have a few books on film making and screen writing. The early stuff that I cut my teeth on (The Guerilla Film Makers Movie Blueprint , Making a Feature Film at Used Car prices). Those books were good for teaching me that I did not know enough to get started and also that I wouldn't find what I was looking for in their contents. That is not to say that they were bad books. Chris Jones actually has a great deal of information about every step of the process. It's an excellent value and introduction. It's just that none of it was the definative authority on any 1 subject.

Intermediate stuff like Rebel Without a Crew which I give to every aspiring film maker I know.

A ton of really mediocre stuff that I didn't care for and don't even know the names of.

The 2 books that should have been the first 2 I bought: Save the Cat, and Story.
 
Alcove Audio said:
My shelves are currently very bare. I lost over 800 books in "The Great Studio Flood of April '07". Lots of sci-fi with healthy doses of the classics, music & audio technical books, religion, philosophy, the sciences, etc. I also lost over 1,000 LPs and 25 years of touring recordings and memorabilia, not to mention the $100k in damages to my studio.

There were four more sets of shelves to the left of the two in the picture. Yeah, the books stayed on the shelves, but they'd soaked in sewage for 12+ hours and were unsalvageable.

l_e685b8955505ba87d72c989e2f22b032.jpg
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That really sucks. I'm sorry to hear that.

After 1 bout with flood damage, and a few moves I switched to a kindle. You can redownload your books for free if you lose it. It's also much easier to pick up a kindle with 800 books than a bookshelf.

If you are anywhere near a flood plain I highly recomend it. If you're not, I still do just not with the same vehemence.
 
I believe i do not own a single book upon Film-making.

I do however have around 80-100 screenplays, but other than this, it's enitrely literature. I never thought it to be of any importance, I've never been one to learn method from a book. I'm a lover of literature, it's known, but never have I sourced interest , or direction, from an instructional text-book.

It seems perculiar now.
 
jeremy said:
After 1 bout with flood damage, and a few moves I switched to a kindle. You can redownload your books for free if you lose it.
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They didn't have Kindle - or a lot of other things we now take for granted - when I started collecting books in the mid 70's. When I was a kid (60's) people still wore their best clothes when flying and a trans-Atlantic phone call was an (expensive) event.
 
Alcove Audio said:
They didn't have Kindle - or a lot of other things we now take for granted - when I started collecting books in the mid 70's. When I was a kid (60's) people still wore their best clothes when flying and a trans-Atlantic phone call was an (expensive) event.
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That sounds worse than the flood ;).

I just pointed it out as something to consider as you rebuild your collection. Though there seems to be a generation gap to it.

And I was in Cannes this year, trust me, a trans-Atlantic phone call is an expensive event.
 
Alcove Audio said:
I lost over 800 books in "The Great Studio Flood of April '07".
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Wow, very sorry to hear that! Physically having them is not as important as been influenced by them. If I lose all my books, a lot of that material remains inside of me and makes up a good deal of who I am.
 
sina12345 said:
MUST REED
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Are you a saxophonist?

Just started reading Sebastian Faulks' A Week In December… nice change from political theory books and journal articles. As a paid-up member of the Facebook generation I can't say the Kindle et al are very appealing - I like having books, lending them to other people, reading them in humid, dusty and slightly dodgy places, and the way they never run out of battery power is amazing.
 
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