Supplément à la vie de Barbara Loden by Nathalie Léger

a novel, P.O.L., 2012

In this eerie and enchanting novel, Nathalie Léger leads us through an intimate exploration of the life and work of Barbara Loden. With much subtlety, she reveals the delicate and insightful portrait of three women struggling to keep their balance, as they find themselves caught between their own aspirations and the ones that are forced on them, and between their desires, fears, and renunciations. Read more here.

Quiconque exerce ce métier stupide mérite tout ce qui lui arrive by Christophe Donner

a novel, Grasset, 2014

During the seven-year span after Truffaut took the Festival de Cannes by storm with Les 400 coups, French cinema underwent one of the most prolific, most inventive, and freest period of its history. Christophe Donner looks back on these creative times with a focus on Claude Berri, Maurice Pialat, and Jean-Pierre Rassam. If these three were too late to the game to revolutionize the French cinema – that being the work of their elder statesmen in the New Wave – they would nonetheless leave their mark for good. Read more here.

Comme une apparition by Francois Poirier

a novel, Actes Sud, 2008

In Stolen Kisses, Antoine Doisnel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) claims that the jaw-droppingly beautiful Madame Tabare (Delphine Seyrig) isn’t a woman, but an “apparition.” Comme une apparition is the story of a life spent in the shadow of Delphine Seyrig’s intelligence, transcending beauty and grace.

L’Incendie de Los Angeles by Nathaniel West

a novel, Points,  1998

No novel more perfectly captures the nuttier side of Hollywood: actors out of work, film extras with big dreams, and parents lining their children up for small roles. But it’s the bit actress Faye Greener who steals the spotlight with her wildly convuluted dreams of stardom: “I’m going to be a star some day — if I’m not I’ll commit suicide.”