Dazzling parties and dashed hopes: To understand Hollywood, you need these 50 books

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Saturday, April 13. Here’s what you need to know to start your weekend:

• The 50 best books to understand the glitz and gloom of Hollywood
• Why Californians are fleeing this once-Golden State
• The best Thai breakfast spots in L.A.
• And here’s today’s e-newspaper

50 books to understand Hollywood

What is Hollywood? An idea? A place? An in-between?

What if it’s a dazzling cocktail? One reeking of glamor coupled with a massive splash of disillusionment, a shot of romance, an ounce of heartbreak and maybe a tablespoon or two of comedy.

The great thing about this cocktail, then, is that anyone can order it: The aspiring actor, director, cinematographer, videographer, screenwriter — all eager to capture a part of the human experience and get recognized for it.

Writers too, enjoy taking a sip of this magical drink. Over a plethora of decades, they have re-created it, highlighting its liminal quality through stories of dashed hopes, disagreement and controversy.

Ahead of our annual Festival of Books, Times Entertainment & Arts editors embarked on a project to answer the question of “What is Hollywood?” by finding the 50 best Hollywood books of all time.

The list, compiled from a survey of experts in the worlds of publishing and entertainment and written by regular contributors to The Times’ film and books coverage, explicates the cocktail’s allure and why many have ordered it again and again, despite its tart aftertaste.

“These 50 titles compare Hollywood to an assembly line, a criminal enterprise, a high-seas expedition and much, much more,” wrote my colleague Matt Brennan.

Give our ranking a look. Have we left your favorite Hollywood book off the list? What is on your Ultimate Hollywood Bookshelf? Tell us in this survey by Monday, April 15.

Until then, here are some of the books that remake and refute Hollywood’s glitz:

(The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)

Number 39: “Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mamies, and Bucks”

At the time of its publication in 1973, Donald Bogle’s book was the only text to investigate the American cinema’s systematized stereotypes of Black characters as the “servile slave,” “mixed-race sufferer” or “violent Black brute.”

“Bogle’s book was practically the birth of the field,” wrote Chris Vognar, a freelance culture writer and former Nieman Arts and Culture fellow at Harvard University.

“[The book] also sought to rescue the humanity of those performers who usually had no other option but to play their assigned roles.”

Number 9: “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls”

It’s difficult to identify Hollywood’s greatest year. But 1974 is a safe bet: “The Godfather Part II,” “Scenes From a Marriage” and “Chinatown” were released.

Peter Biskind’s book provides an addictive, encyclopedic account of the people behind why 1974 was such a terrific year in American cinematic history.

If you’re looking for anecdotes about the screenwriters that made these “brilliant pictures” possible, you might be disappointed. Because, as David Kipen, author of “The Schreiber Theory: A Radical Rewrite of American Film History” wrote, Biskind “adheres to the pervasive, pernicious auteur theory, which insists that even non-writing directors are the ‘authors’ of their movies.”

Number 1: “Play It As It Lays”

Joan Didion’s novel is a cutting-edge study of a decaying Hollywood, saturated “with copycat movies, predatory men, hacks and hangers-on,” wrote Matt. “The most remarkable aspect of Didion’s portrait is not the ruthless precision with which it renders the film business then, but the clarity with which it corresponds to the film business now.”

If your agent was a no-show at a crucial meeting or you attended an exclusive party as the guest of a guest, you have already faced the broken Hollywood of Didion’s novel.

The week’s biggest stories

O.J. Simpson during his murder trial in Los Angeles.

(Vince Bucci/AFP via Getty Images)

O.J. Simpson dies

• O.J. Simpson, whose murder trial riveted and divided the world, dies at 76.
• Commentary: Silence spoke volumes about O.J. Simpson’s deeply tarnished football legacy.
• How O.J. Simpson’s murder trial changed the TV news business.

Coachella 2024

• 25 of the best restaurants and bars for your Palm Springs or Coachella road trip.
• Girl Ultra, Eddie Zuko and more Latin artists tell us how they are prepping for Coachella.
• Hatsune Miku is playing Coachella, but she’s not human. Why brands are working with digital avatars.
• Coachella 2024: Everything you need to know about the festival.
• Eighteen acts we can’t wait to see at Coachella 2024.
• Taylor Swift at Coachella? These are the 3 sets where our experts think she could appear.

Shohei Ohtani interpreter scandal

• Shohei Ohtani’s former translator Ippei Mizuhara surrenders to federal officials in L.A.
• Why feds say Shohei Ohtani is a ‘victim’: Interpreter allegedly paid gambling debts pretending to be Dodger.
• What’s next for Shohei Ohtani and MLB after charges against Ippei Mizuhara?
• Shohei Ohtani ‘grateful’ for investigation into ex-interpreter: ‘I’d like to focus on baseball.’

SoCal home prices

• All-cash offers and wealthy buyers push Southern California home prices to a record.
• Housing tracker: SoCal home prices at a record.
• Looking to buy or sell a home this spring? Here’s what to expect.

More big stories

• L.A. to provide resources to hundreds of 99 Cents Only workers losing their jobs.
• Still haven’t filed your taxes? How to avoid penalties or lost refunds.
• Grab your winter jackets, California. Cold weather is coming this weekend.
• Suspect in clubbing of two women near Venice canals arrested in San Diego.
• Lancaster accuses county of $10-million ‘illegal profit’ on Sheriff’s Department contract.
• Trans-led coalition targeted by multiple bomb threats: ‘How can there be people so cruel?’
• Video shows L.A. probation officers letting group beat teen in Los Padrinos juvenile hall.
• Roku says 576,000 accounts were hacked in the latest breach.
• Google says it will reduce some user access to California news sites.
• A nationwide manhunt for a fake priest who stole faith as well as cash ends in Moreno Valley.
• Downtown L.A. is hurting. Frank Gehry thinks arts can lead a revival.
• Why the search for the next Gustavo Dudamel is full of hope — and hazards.

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Column One

Column One is The Times’ home for narrative and longform journalism. Here’s a great piece from this week:

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Santa Monica luxury towers, HOA fees, alleged theft: Where did the millions go? A fight to reclaim the HOA board at the Ocean Towers luxury residential co-op eventually uncovered millions of dollars of alleged fraud and caught the attention of the California Department of Justice.

More great reads

• A California border town’s first transgender mayor faces recall. Is gender the reason?
• The secret to French onion ramen and other life lessons from ‘The Mythical Cookbook.’
• Column: Confederate sentiment in Southern California ran deeper than you might know.
• Palm Spring promises to ‘right that wrong’ for Black, Latino community destroyed in 1960s.
• Column: A cancer survivor’s advice — research, persistence and second opinions.

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.

For your weekend

Thai restaurant Holy Basil, in both downtown and Atwater Village, serves dishes dishes such as a classic Thai omelet, or kai jeaw, and shrimp in a cross-culturally inspired yellow curry.

(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)

Going out

• 🍜 The best Thai breakfast spots in L.A., for any time of day.
• 💿 Live DJ sets! Freebies! Exclusive drops! 12 L.A. shops going big for Record Store Day.
• 🎦 In ‘The People’s Joker’ — screening at Landmark’s Nuart Theatre in West Los Angeles — an iconic villain is co-opted for sly trans expression.
• 🎥 Celebrating the midnight movie, plus the best films to see in L.A. this week.

Staying in

• 📚 The 50 best Hollywood books of all time.
• 🥧 Here’s a recipe for Tourte De Blettes Sucrée (Sweet Swiss Chard Pie).
• ✏️ Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games.

How well did you follow the news this week? Take our quiz.

(Times staff and wire photos)

In one of L.A.’s largest cash heists ever, burglars stole how much? Plus nine other questions from our weekly news quiz.

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Defne Karabatur, fellow
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor

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