Frank Cottrell Boyce's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Frank Cottrell Boyce recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Frank Cottrell Boyce's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1

Karoo

Saul Karoo is a memorable creation. He is a successful Hollywood script doctor, a fixer of flawed films. He is fifty, overweight, a heavy drinker and chain smoker. He is at an age when things break down, but he has no health insurance. His separation from his wife, Dinah, has become another form of marriage. His relationship with his son, Billy, a college student, is one of pure avoidance. He cannot free himself from the grip of the powerful producer Jay Cromwell, who wants him to recut the last great film of the legendary director Arthur Houseman and make it more commercial. After seeing the... more
Recommended by Frank Cottrell Boyce, and 1 others.

Frank Cottrell BoyceThe best fictional story about modern filmmaking that you’re ever going to read. It’s about a script doctor who knows what he should do and ends up doing what he shouldn’t do. (Source)

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2

Keaton

Recommended by Frank Cottrell Boyce, and 1 others.

Frank Cottrell BoyceTo me Keaton is the Michelangelo of cinema. If anyone ever was an auteur it was him, and his masterpiece is The General. (Source)

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3

The Thirty-Nine Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)

A gripping tale of adventure that has enthralled readers since it was first published, John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps is edited with an introduction and notes by Sir John Keegan in Penguin Classics.

Adventurer Richard Hannay has just returned from South Africa and is thoroughly bored with his London life - until a spy is murdered in his flat, just days after having warned Hannay of an assassination plot that could plunge Britain into a war with Germany. An obvious suspect for the police and an easy target for the killers, Hannay picks up the trail left by the assassins,...
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Frank Cottrell BoyceIt’s quite a good book, but it’s got one great idea, and Hitchcock ran with it. When adapting a book it’s much better to take the thing that’s brilliant about it and polish it. (Source)

Michael FarrHitchcock said of The Thirty-Nine Steps that it was a wonderful book to film because you didn’t need to do a storyboard, it was all there already. (Source)

Sam BourneIt is extraordinarily fast paced. A huge part of any good thriller is the chase, and this is very good on that. (Source)

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4
After the Civil War, the building of the transcontinental railroad was the nineteenth century's most transformative event. Beginning in 1842 with a visionary's dream to span the continent with twin bands of iron, Empire Express captures three dramatic decades in which the United States effectively doubled in size, fought three wars, and began to discover a new national identity. From self--made entrepreneurs such as the Union Pacific's Thomas Durant and era--defining figures such as President Lincoln to the thousands of laborers whose backbreaking work made the railroad... more
Recommended by Frank Cottrell Boyce, and 1 others.

Frank Cottrell BoyceIt’s about this massive project that took a humungous amount of money, which had been prised out of people with hype, lies, bribery and, above all, with spectacle. (Source)

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5

The Best of Satyajit Ray

Recommended by Frank Cottrell Boyce, and 1 others.

Frank Cottrell BoyceThis contains interviews, essays, drawings, little bits of storyboard. Ray is such an inspiring figure: he’s a proper artist. (Source)

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