Book picks similar to
Platoon & Salvador: The Original Screenplays by Oliver Stone


screenplays
less-than-100-ratings
work-research
fictionish

The 25th Hour


David Benioff - 2000
    Wall Street speculators, the Manhattan downtown club scene, Russian gangsters, immigrant neighborhoods - all the elements in the urban turf of this finely crafted contemporary crime novel wed danger with excitement and possibility. They're the rewards that Monty Brogan, who stands at the center of the moral glare in this tale, has already lost, just as he's lost his Corvette, and the "sway" that opened the doors of exclusive night spots and guaranteed him courtside seats at Madison Square Garden. Tomorrow Monty's traveling by bus, to the federal prison in Otisville, for seven years. He's afraid, and all he'd ever really wanted when he grew up was to be a fireman. With the pulse of the city in its prose, this debut novel follows Monty through the twenty-four hours of his last day out. At the same time, it illuminates the worlds, and souls, of his two best friends: Frank Slattery, an edgy bond trader who gambles daily with financial ruin, and Jakob Elinsky, an English teacher who clings to illusions as he compromises his ideals. Friends since their high school days, the three of them nostalgically share a past, but warily they confront a future that can no longer accommodate their adolescent dreams. They meet. They drink, and talk, go clubbing, dance, drink, and remember. What neither Slattery nor Jakob know, however, is that Monty has a plan. It's a shocker.Originally published: New York: Carroll & Graf Pub., 2000.

The Moonshiner's Daughter


Donna Everhart - 2019
    . .Generations of Sassers have made moonshine in the Brushy Mountains of Wilkes County, North Carolina. Their history is recorded in a leather-bound journal that belongs to Jessie Sasser's daddy, but Jessie wants no part of it. As far as she's concerned, moonshine caused her mother's death a dozen years ago.Her father refuses to speak about her mama, or about the day she died. But Jessie has a gnawing hunger for the truth--one that compels her to seek comfort in food. Yet all her self-destructive behavior seems to do is feed what her school's gruff but compassionate nurse describes as the "monster" inside Jessie.Resenting her father's insistence that moonshining runs in her veins, Jessie makes a plan to destroy the stills, using their neighbors as scapegoats. Instead, her scheme escalates an old rivalry and reveals long-held grudges. As she endeavors to right wrongs old and new, Jessie's loyalties will bring her to unexpected revelations about her family, her strengths--and a legacy that may provide her with the answers she has been longing for.

Origami Yoda Pack: The Strange Case of Origami Yoda / Darth Paper Strikes Back: An Origami Yoda Book (Origami Yoda)


Tom Angleberger
    In these hilarious bestsellers, Dwight's finger-puppet, Origami Yoda, always saves the day, but what happens when Darth Paper appears on the scene?

Whispering Wind


Frederick Forsyth - 2000
    The favour is returned when the scout is saved by the Cheyenne and given mercy, but when he falls in love with the girl he saved he knows that the tribe will never allow them to be together. They escape, but are forced to abandon their flight when they encounter an omen telling them that she is pledged to another. This frontier tale soon becomes a violent present day manhunt through the Wild West. Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection The Veteran.

This Tower of Ashes


George R.R. Martin - 1976
    R. Martin's "The Thousand Worlds" setting.

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro


Jai Arjun Singh - 2010
    Some of the country s finest theatre and film talents all at key stages in their careers participated in its creation, but the journey was anything but smooth. Among other things, it involved bumping off disco killers and talking gorillas, finding air-conditioned rooms for dead rats, persuading a respected actor to stop sulking and eat his meals, and resisting the temptation to introduce logic into a madcap script. In the end, it was worth it.Kundan Shah s Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro is now a byword for the sort of absurdist, satirical humour that Hindi cinema just hasn t seen enough of. This is the story of how it came to be despite incredible odds and what it might have been. Jai Arjun Singh s engaging take on the making of the film and its cult following is as entertaining as the film itself.

The Wonderful World of Robert Sheckley


Robert Sheckley - 1979
    A TV thrill show where the corpses are real. And a shuddering descent into laughter.Tales by the grand master of science fiction.

Dangerous to Know


Mary Jo Putney - 2007
    In The Diabolical Baron, Jason Kincaid, nineteenth Baron Radford, casually makes a wager that willmake the innocent Caroline Hanscombe his bride. Who would have dreamed that this elusive innocent would have plans of her own? In Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know, sexy gambler Andrew Kane has made one enemy too many and he's on his way to be hanged when a beautiful widow comes to his rescue. But how can he in turn rescue her from her soul-destroying father-in-law when his own life swings in the balance?

The Virgin Blue


Tracy Chevalier - 1997
    When Ella and her husband move to a small town in France, Ella hopes to brush up on her French, qualify to practice as a midwife, and start a family of her own. Village life turns out to be less idyllic than she expected, however, and a peculiar dream of the color blue propels her on a quest to uncover her family’s French ancestry. As the novel unfolds—alternating between Ella’s story and that of Isabelle du Moulin four hundred years earlier—a common thread emerges that unexpectedly links the two women. Part detective story, part historical fiction, The Virgin Blue is a novel of passion and intrigue that compels readers to the very last page.

Warden of the Blade


David Annandale - 2016
    For the first time, discover the origins of this dread task and why only Crowe can be the one to carry it out.Castellan Crowe, Brotherhood Champion of the Purifier order of the Grey Knights, bears a heavy burden – to be the warden of the dread Blade of Antwyr. Its malevolent voice is forever in his head, trying to crack his resolve, urging him to unleash a power he must never use. The toll is terrible, and how long before the incorruptible Crowe is at last defeated? His harrowing task first began at Sandava II… Under the command of Castellan Gavallan, Crowe and his brother Purifiers bring purging flame to a daemonic incursion that threatens to consume the world. What awaits them is more insidious and more powerful than they imagine, and they must reckon too with the machinations of the Blade, as it seeks to destroy its guardian and drown the galaxy in blood.It's a fascinating look at a compelling character, showcasing the duality of the purest of souls as he contends with the corrupting power of an artefact that could damn him and all he holds dear to utter ruination.

East Is East


T. Coraghessan Boyle - 1990
    In the hands of T. Coraghessan Boyle, praised by Digby Diehl in Playboy as "one of the most exciting young fiction writers in America," the result is a sexy, hilarious tragicomedy of thwarted expectations and mistaken identity, love, jealousy, and betrayal.

The Michael Crichton Collection: Jurassic Park / The Lost World / The Andromeda Strain


Michael Crichton - 2000
    These three audios are offered at 40% off the indivial retail price. ANDROMEDA STRAINRead by Chris North The Andromeda Strain sets forth the story of Project Wildfire - the crash mobilization of the nations highest scientific and medical resources when an unmanned research satellite returns to earth mysteriously and lethally contaminated. Four American scientists are summoned under conditions of total news blackout and utmost urgency to Wildfire's secret laboratory five stories below the Nevada desert. There - surrounded by the most sophisticated computer equipment, and sealed off from the outside world - they work against the threat of a worldwide epidemic. Step by step they begin to unravel the puzzle of the Andromeda Strain until, terrifyingly, their microbacterial adversary ruptures the hypersterile seal of the lab and their already desperate search for a biomedical answer becomes a split second race against time. JURASSIC PARKRead by John Heard A shroud of secrecy covers a privately-owned island off the coast of the Dominican Republic where an American bioengineering firm is quietly building a resort theme park. Even the expert consultants on the project don't know exactly what it is. And local doctors are mystified when an injured park worker arrives at the hospital with gashes on his body, as if he's been mauled by an animal of monstrous proportions. A year later, when the first invited guests to "Jurassic Park" attend a 4-day preview, the amazement, the shock, and finally, the terror they experience there offer a horrifying solution to this disturbing puzzle. Riveting scientific detail ad a driving, suspenseful narrative make this an unforgettable story - one of advanced technology versus prehistoric monsters . . . and of an extraordinary good idea gone extraordinary bad. THE LOST WORLDRead by Anthony Heald The sequel to Michael Crichton's bestselling "Jurassic Park." It is now six years since the secret disaster at Jurassic Park: six years since that extraordinary dream of science and imagination came to a crashing end - the dinosaurs destroyed, the part dismantled, the island indefinitely closed to the public. There are rumors that something has survived.

The Essential Novels of P.G. Wodehouse


P.G. Wodehouse - 1924
    Wodehouse novels and story and article collections, with active table of contents. Illustrated with 10 unique illustrations.The Adventures of SallyThe Clicking of CuthbertThe Coming of BillA Damsel in DistressDeath At The Excelsior, and Other StoriesThe Gem CollectorThe Girl on the BoatThe Gold BatThe Head of Kay'sIndiscretions of ArchieThe Intrusion of JimmyJill the RecklessThe Little NuggetThe Little WarriorLove Among the ChickensA Man of MeansThe Man Upstairs and Other StoriesThe Man With Two Left Feet And Other StoriesMikeMike and PsmithMy Man JeevesNot George Washington, An Autobiographical NovelPiccadilly JimThe Politeness of Princes and Other School StoriesThe PothuntersA Prefect's UnclePsmith in the CityPsmith, JournalistRight Ho, JeevesSomething NewThe Swoop! or How Clarence Saved EnglandTales of St. Austin'sThree Men and a MaidUneasy MoneyThe White FeatherA Wodehouse Miscellany, Articles & Stories

Licence to Thrill: A Cultural History of the James Bond Films


James Chapman - 1999
    The saga of Britain's best-loved martini hound (who we all know prefers his favorite drink "shaken, not stirred") has adapted to changing times for four decades without ever abandoning its tried-and-true formula of diabolical international conspiracy, sexual intrigue, and incredible gadgetry.James Chapman expertly traces the annals of celluloid Bond from its inauguration with 1962's Dr. No through its progression beyond Ian Fleming's spy novels to the action-adventure spectaculars of GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies. He argues that the enormous popularity of the series represents more than just the sum total of the films' box-office receipts and involves questions of film culture in a wider sense.Licence to Thrill chronicles how Bond, a representative of a British Empire that no longer existed in his generation, became a symbol of his nation's might in a Cold War world where Britain was no longer a primary actor. Chapman describes the protean nature of Bond villains in a volatile global political scene--from Soviet scoundrels and Chinese rogues in the 1960s to a brief flirtation with Latin American drug kingpins in the 1980s and back to the Chinese in the 1990s. The book explores how the movies struggle with changing societal ethics--notably, in the evolution in the portrayal of women, showing how Bond's encounters with the opposite sex have evolved into trysts with leading ladies as sexually liberated as Bond himself.The Bond formula has proved remarkably durable and consistently successful for roughly a third of cinema's history--half the period since the introduction of talking pictures in the late 1920s. Moreover, Licence to Thrill argues that, for the foreseeable future, the James Bond films are likely to go on being what they have always been, a unique and very special kind of popular cinema.

Shakespeare in Love: A Screenplay


Marc Norman - 1999
    Marc Norman and renowned dramatist, Tom Stoppard have created the best screenplay of the year according to the Golden Globes and the New York Film Critics Circle.