A few more choice selections for your purchasing (and reading) pleasure…

How to Build a Great Screenplay by David Howard ($16)

In making individual decisions about each element of the screenplay a writer builds a good story from the ground up. David Howard offers in-depth consideration of the many elements that make up a screenplay, clarifying his lessons through examples from the most successful films: Pulp Fiction, American Beauty, The Usual Suspects, Trainspotting and Chinatown among many others.

Accessible, clear and practical ‘How To Build A Great Screenplay’ is a working bible for the budding screenwriter. Recognising that story structure is the framework for a successful screenplay David Howard teaches how to incorporate the other elements so that the screenplay takes on a life of its own, creating the emotional connection, spectacle and intellectual stimulation that will impact on an audience.

JPod : A Novel by Douglas Coupland ($11)

Ethan Jarlewski and five co-workers are bureaucratically marooned in JPod, a no-escape architectural limbo on the fringes of a massive Vancouver video game design company.

The six jPodders wage daily battle against the demands of a bone-headed marketing staff, who daily torture employees with idiotic changes to already idiotic games. Meanwhile, Ethan’s personal life is shaped (or twisted) by phenomena as disparate as Hollywood, marijuana grow-ops, people-smuggling, ballroom dancing, and the rise of China. JPod’s universe is amoral and shamelessand dizzyingly fast-paced.

I just <3 Douglas Coupland so much. He’s damn funny and damn weird. Recommended!

The Chimney Sweeper’s Boy – Barbara Vine ($11)

Bestselling and critically acclaimed novelist Gerald Candless dies suddenly, and leaves behind a wife and two doting daughters. To sort through her grief, his daughter Sarah puts aside her university studies and agrees to write a biography of her famous father. But as she begins her research and pulls back the veil of his past, her life is slowly torn apart: a terrible logic begins to unfold that explains her mother’s remoteness, her father’s need to continually reinvent himself — and sheds shocking light on a long-forgotten London murder.

Regular readers will know that I discovered the amazing writing of Barbara Vine only last year (the shame, the shame!) and this is a fantastic book – highly recommended by me.

Virginia Woolf – Hermione Lee ($10)

While Virginia Woolf–one of our century’s most brilliant and mercurial writers–has had no shortage of biographers, none has seemed as naturally suited to the task as Hermione Lee. Subscribing to Virginia Woolf’s own belief in the fluidity and elusiveness of identity, Lee comes at her subject from a multitude of perspectives, producing a richly layered portrait of the writer and the woman that leaves all of her complexities and contradictions intact. Such issues as sexual abuse, mental illness, and suicide are brought into balance with the immensity of her literary achievement, her heroic commitment to her work, her generosity and wit, and her sanity and strength.

One of the best biographies I’ve read, Lee delves so deep into Woolf’s life and character you feel like you’ve somehow known her.

Hey! It’s That Guy! : The Fametracker.com Guide to Character Actors ($8)

So you’re watching Full Metal Jacket and there he is that guy! What’s his name? You know, that guy who always plays a drill sergeant! Or you’re watching Fast Times at Ridgemont High and there’s another one that creepy science teacher! That guy always plays a creepy somebody! What’s his name?

We’re talking about R. Lee Ermey and Vincent Schiavelli, of course and you can read all about them in Hey! It’s That Guy!, a guide to identifying “famous” character actors and actresses.

From Steve Buscemi and Philip Seymour Hoffman to J. T. Walsh, Judy Greer, and Amy Aquino, they’re all here. You may not know their names, but you’ll certainly recognize their faces! 

Hilarious. And I love Steve Buscemi. Mwah, mwah, mwah.