Book picks similar to
Agatha Christie on Screen by Mark Aldridge


non-fiction
agatha-christie
crime
film-television

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets


David Simon - 1991
    Twice every three days another citizen is shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned to death. At the center of this hurricane of crime is the city's homicide unit, a small brotherhood of hard men who fight for whatever justice is possible in a deadly world.David Simon was the first reporter ever to gain unlimited access to a homicide unit, and this electrifying book tells the true story of a year on the violent streets of an American city. The narrative follows Donald Worden, a veteran investigator; Harry Edgerton, a black detective in a mostly white unit; and Tom Pellegrini, an earnest rookie who takes on the year's most difficult case, the brutal rape and murder of an eleven-year-old girl.Originally published fifteen years ago, Homicide became the basis for the acclaimed television show of the same name. This new edition--which includes a new introduction, an afterword, and photographs--revives this classic, riveting tale about the men who work on the dark side of the American experience.

COPS


Mark Baker - 1985
    From the idealistic rookie to the burnt-out veteran, here are the unforgettable voices of over 100 police men and women across the country... cops who shoot and are shot at, who pick up the pieces of shattered bodies and shattered lives, who face the danger, the fear, and the depravity... who live every day in the frightening, hard world of COPS.

Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books


Maureen Corrigan - 2005
    “It’s just that there always comes a moment when I’m in the company of others—even my nearest and dearest—when I’d rather be reading a book.” In this delightful memoir, Corrigan reveals which books and authors have shaped her own life—from classic works of English literature to hard-boiled detective novels, and everything in between. And in her explorations of the heroes and heroines throughout literary history, Corrigan’s love for a good story shines.

Book Girl: A Journey Through the Treasures and Transforming Power of a Reading Life


Sarah Clarkson - 2018
    Raised in the company of the lively Anne of Green Gables, the brave Pevensie children of Narnia, and the wise Austen heroines, she discovered reading early on as a daily gift, a way of encountering the world in all its wonder. But what she came to realize as an adult was just how powerfully books had shaped her as a woman to live a story within that world, to be a lifelong learner, to grasp hope in struggle, and to create and act with courage.She's convinced that books can do the same for you.Join Sarah in exploring the reading life as a gift and an adventure, one meant to enrich, broaden, and delight you in each season of your life as a woman. In Book Girl, you'll discover:how reading can strengthen your spiritual life and deepen your faith, why a journey through classic literature might be just what you need (and where to begin), how stories form your sense of identity, how Sarah's parents raised her to be a reader--and what you can do to cultivate a love of reading in the growing readers around you, and 20+ annotated book lists, including some old favorites and many new discoveries.Whether you've long considered yourself a reader or have dreams of becoming one, Book Girl will draw you into the life-giving journey of becoming a woman who reads and lives well.

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them


Francine Prose - 2006
    Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart - to take pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; she is deeply moved by the brilliant characterization in George Eliot's Middlemarch. She looks to John Le Carré for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue and to Flannery O'Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail. And, most important, Prose cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which all literature is crafted.

A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America


T. Christian Miller - 2018
    Within days police, and even those closest to Marie, became suspicious of her story. The police swiftly pivoted and began investigating Marie. Confronted with inconsistencies in her story and the doubts of others, Marie broke down and said her story was a lie--a bid for attention. Police charged Marie with false reporting, and she was branded a liar.More than two years later, Colorado detective Stacy Galbraith was assigned to investigate a case of sexual assault. Describing the crime to her husband that night, Galbraith learned that the case bore an eerie resemblance to a rape that had taken place months earlier in a nearby town. She joined forces with the detective on that case, Edna Hendershot, and the two soon discovered they were dealing with a serial rapist: a man who photographed his victims, threatening to release the images online, and whose calculated steps to erase all physical evidence suggested he might be a soldier or a cop. Through meticulous police work the detectives would eventually connect the rapist to other attacks in Colorado--and beyond.Based on investigative files and extensive interviews with the principals, A False Report/i>is a serpentine tale of doubt, lies, and a hunt for justice, unveiling the disturbing truth of how sexual assault is investigated today - and the long history of skepticism toward rape victims.

Double Lives, Second Chances: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski


Annette Insdorf - 1999
    His best-known films, Blue; White; Red; The Double Life of Veronique; and The Decalogue, remain watershed events in lmmaking history. Author Annette Insdorf, Kieslowskis close friend and translator, offers a revealing portrait of his life and monumental body of work. From the gold-bathed images of The Double Life of Veronique to the emotionally dark, visually haunting Blue, Kieslowskis films explore personal and social issues with inimitable brilliance. This paperback edition includes an updated introduction with information on the much anticipated release of Heaven (March 2002) which Kieslowski wrote and planned to film, before he died unexpectedly in March 1996.

Weatherland: Writers & Artists under English Skies


Alexandra Harris - 2015
    Before the Norman Conquest, Anglo-Saxons living in a wintry world wrote about the coldness of exile or the shelters they had to defend against enemies outside. The Middle Ages brought the warmth of spring; the new lyrics were sung in praise of blossoms and cuckoos. Descriptions of a rainy night are rare before 1700, but by the end of the eighteenth century the Romantics had adopted the squall as a fit subject for their most probing thoughts.The weather is vast and yet we experience it intimately, and Alexandra Harris builds her remarkable story from small evocative details. There is the drawing of a twelfth-century man in February, warming bare toes by the fire. There is the tiny glass left behind from the Frost Fair of 1684, and the Sunspan house in Angmering that embodies the bright ambitions of the 1930s. Harris catches the distinct voices of compelling individuals. “Bloody cold,” says Jonathan Swift in the “slobbery” January of 1713. Percy Shelley wants to become a cloud and John Ruskin wants to bottle one. Weatherland is a celebration of English air and a life story of those who have lived in it.

Babble


Charles Saatchi - 2013
    From 'The hideousness of the art world', 'Being thick is no obstacle to being a successful artist' and 'Painting is a blind man's obsession'; to 'Socialising for party duds', 'Love may be blind, but marriage is an eye-opener' and 'If it can't be explained by science, try a seance'.

The Library Book


Susan Orlean - 2018
    As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, “Once that first stack got going, it was ‘Goodbye, Charlie.’” The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who?Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.In The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries across the country and around the world, from their humble beginnings as a metropolitan charitable initiative to their current status as a cornerstone of national identity; brings each department of the library to vivid life through on-the-ground reporting; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; reflects on her own experiences in libraries; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago.Along the way, Orlean introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters from libraries past and present—from Mary Foy, who in 1880 at eighteen years old was named the head of the Los Angeles Public Library at a time when men still dominated the role, to Dr. C.J.K. Jones, a pastor, citrus farmer, and polymath known as “The Human Encyclopedia” who roamed the library dispensing information; from Charles Lummis, a wildly eccentric journalist and adventurer who was determined to make the L.A. library one of the best in the world, to the current staff, who do heroic work every day to ensure that their institution remains a vital part of the city it serves.Brimming with her signature wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research, The Library Book is Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks that reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country. It is also a master journalist’s reminder that, perhaps especially in the digital era, they are more necessary than ever.

A Panorama of American Film Noir: 1941-1953


Raymond Borde - 1955
    . . a seminal work of cinema description and analysis and therefore an essential purchase for most libraries." —From the Starred Review in Library JournalRaymond Borde (1920 - 2004), founder of the Cinémathèque de Toulouse, wrote extensively on film history.; among his short films is a study of the artist Pierre Molinier.Etienne Chaumeton was the film critic of the Toulouse newspaper La Dépêche until his death.

Murder Ink: The Mystery Reader's Companion


Dilys Winn - 1977
    Thoughtful and amusing articles about the mystery genre by authors, critics and fans.

The Paddington Mystery


John Rhode - 1925
    

Cabinet of Curiosities: My Notebooks, Collections, and Other Obsessions


Guillermo del Toro - 2013
    Now, for the first time, del Toro reveals the inspirations behind his signature artistic motifs, sharing the contents of his personal notebooks, collections, and other obsessions. The result is a startling, intimate glimpse into the life and mind of one of the world's most creative visionaries. Complete with running commentary, interview text, and annotations that contextualize the ample visual material, this deluxe compendium is every bit as inspired as del Toro is himself.Contains a foreword by James Cameron, an afterword by Tom Cruise, and contributions from other luminaries, including Neil Gaiman and John Landis, among others.

Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34


Bryan Burrough - 2004
    Edgar Hoover’s FBI to tell the full story—for the first time—of the most spectacular crime wave in American history, the two-year battle between the young Hoover and the assortment of criminals who became national icons: John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Barkers. In an epic feat of storytelling and drawing on a remarkable amount of newly available material on all the major figures involved, Burrough reveals a web of interconnections within the vast American underworld and demonstrates how Hoover’s G-men overcame their early fumbles to secure the FBI’s rise to power.