If you’ve enjoyed reading the Hollywood’s Garden of Allah novels, and are interested in learning more about the golden years of Hollywood, here is a list of the books I read while researching for the series. On the TIMELINE and HOLLYWOOD PLACES pages, you’ll find references at the end of each entry. They refer to the page number of the books listed here. (For example “2/15″ refers to page 2 of book 15.)
- The Garden of Allah by Sheilah Graham, Crown Publishers, 1970
- This Is Hollywood, an unusual movieland guide by Ken Schessler, Ken Schessler Productions, 1984
- California Babylon: A Guide to Sites of Scandal, Mayhem, and Celluloid in the Golden State by Kristan Lawson & Annelo Rugus, St Martin’s Griffin, 2000
- The Hollywood Book of Scandals by James Robert Parish, McGraw-Hill, 2004
- The Hollywood Book of Death by James Robert Parish, McGraw-Hill, 2004
- Lost Hollywood by David Wallace
- L.A. Exposed: Strange Myths and Curious Legends in the City of Angels by Paul Young
- Dancing at Ciro’s by Sheila Weller, St Martin’s Press, 2003
- Love, Laughter and Tears by Adela Rogers St. John, Doubleday & Co, 1978
- Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969 by William J. Mann, Penguin Books, 2001
- Open Secret: Gay Hollywood, 1928-2000 by David Ehrenstein, William Morrow & Co. 1998
- Honeycomb by Adela Rogers St. John, Doubleday & Co, 1969
- GWTW: The Making of Gone with the Wind by Gavin Lambert, Little, Brown & Co, 1973
- Hollywood: The First 100 Years by Bruce T. Torrence, New York Zoetrope, 1979
- The First Lady of Hollywood: A Biography of Louella Parsons by Samantha Barbas, Uni of California Press, 2005
- Hollywood in Vintage Postcards by Rod Kennedy Jr, Elizabeth Ellis, Richard T. Ingram, Gibbs Smith 2003
- Mike Connolly and the Manly Art of Hollywood Gossip by Val Holley, McFarland & Co, 2003
- My Wicked, Wicked Ways by Errol Flynn, Cooper Square Press (2002)
- Merchant of Dreams: Louis B. Mayer and the Secret Hollywood by Charles Higham, Laurel Books, 1993
- Nazimova: A Biography by Gavin Lambert, Knopf, 1997
- Movie Time: A Chronology of Hollywood and the Movie Industry from Its Beginnings to the Present by Gene Brown, Macmillan, 1995
- The Fifty-year Decline and Fall of Hollywood by Ezra Goodman, MacFadden Books, 1962
- Timetables of American History, edited by Laurence Durang, 1996
- Robert Benchley: A biography by Nathaniel Benchley, McGraw-Hill, 1955
- The Movie Lover’s Guide to Hollywood by Richard Alleman, Harper Colophon Books, 1985
- Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? By Marion Meade, Penguin Books, 1987
- Voices offstage: A book of memoirs by Marc Connelly, Holt, Rinehart & Winston Inc, 1968
- The Hollywood Reporter: The Golden Years by Tichi Wilkerson & Marcia Borie, Howard McCann, 1984
- By a stroke of luck!: An autobiography by Donald Ogden Stewart, Paddington Press, 1975
- Confessions of a Hollywood Columnist by Sheilah Graham, Bantam Books, 1969
- Hollywood Revisited by Sheilah Graham, St Martin’s Press, 1984
- Crazy Sundays: F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood by Aaron Latham, Pocket Books, 1972
- Beloved Infidel by Sheilah Graham & Gerold Frank, Bantam Books, 1958
-and- The Rest of the Story by Sheilah Graham, Bantam Books, 1964 - The Lion’s Share: the Story of an Entertainment Empire by Bosley Crowther, E. P. Dutton & Co. 1957
- The Shattered Silents by Alexander Walker, Harrap London, 1986
- George Cukor: Double Life by Patrick McGilligan, HarperPerennial, 1991
- Tallulah: My Autobiography by Tallulah Bankhead. Dell Books, 1962
- Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro by Andre Soares, St. Martin’s Press, (2002)
- The Man Who Invented Las Vegas by W.R. Wilkerson III, Ciro’s Books 2000
- Out with the Stars: Hollywood Nightlife in the Golden Era by Jim Heimann, Abbeville Press, 1985
- Gone Hollywood by Christopher Finch and Linda Rosenkrantz, Doubleday & company, 1979
- City of Nets by Otto Friedrich, Harper Perennial (2014)
- Growing Up in Hollywood by Robert Parrish, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (1976)
- Don’t get me wrong – I love Hollywood by Sidney Skolsky, Putnam (1975)
- The Bad and the Beautiful: Hollywood in the Fifties by Sam Kashner, Jennifer Macnair, W. W. Norton (2003)
- The Times We Had by Marion Davies, Ballantine Books (1977)
- The Glamour Factory: Inside Hollywood’s Big Studio System by Ronald L. Davis, Southern Methodist University Press, 1993
- Chasen’s: Where Hollywood Dined by Betty Goodwin. Angel City Press, 1996
- Hollywood du Jour by Betty Goodwin, Angel City Press, 1993
- Hollywood Anecdotes by Paul F. Jr Boller, Ballantine Books, 1987
- A Private View by Irene Mayer Selznick, Knopf (1983)
- Hollywood by Garson Kanin, Bantam (1976)
- The wit and wisdom of Hollywood; from the Squaw Man to the Hatchet Man by Max Wilk, Scribner (1971)
- Gaudy Spree: The Literary Life of Hollywood in the 1930’s when the West Was Fun by Sam Marx, Ed Breslin, Franklin Watts (1990)
- Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood by Cari Beauchamp, University of California Press, 1997
- Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940: How Americans Lived Through the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression – David E. Kyvig, Ivan R. Dee, 2004
- Hollywood Leg Man by Jaik Rosenstein, Madison Press, 1950
- The Making of Citizen Kane by Robert Carrringer, University of California Press, 1985
- The Sewing Circle by Axel Madsen, Birch Lane Press, 1995
- Gay L.A. by Stuart Timmons and Lillian Faderman, Basic Books, 2006
- Hollywood 1900-1950 In Vintage Postcards by Thomas Dangcil, Arcadia Publishing, 2002
- Hollywood in the Forties by Charles Higham, Joel Greenberg
- Lamparski’s Hidden Hollywood by Richard Lamparski, Simon & Schuster, 1981
- The 1940s: Decade of Triumph and Trouble by Cabell Phillips, Macmillan, 1975
- The Grove Book of Hollywood by Christopher Silvester, Grove Press, 2007
- Hollywood Remembered: An Oral History of Its Golden Age by Paul Zollo, Taylor Trade Publishing, 2011
- Hollywoodland U.S.A.: The moviegoer’s guide to Southern California by John Pashdag, Chronicle Books, 1984
- The Irish peacock: The confessions of a legendary talent agent by Billy Grady, Arlington House, 1972
- Dancing in the Dark by Howard Dietz, Quadrangle/New York Times Book Co., 1974
- Through the Decades: 1940s by Michael V. Uschan, Lucent Books, 1999
- Everyday Life from Prohibition through World War II by Marcus McCutcheon, Writer’s Digest Books, 1995
- The Hollywood Writers’ Wars by Nancy Lynn Schwartz, Sheila Schwartz, Knopf, 1982
- On Cukor by Gavin Lambert, Robert Trachtenberg
- I’d Hate Myself in the Morning by Ring Lardner Jr., Victor S. Navasky, Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2000
- Hollywood Red: The Autobiography of Lester Cole by Lester Cole, Ramparts Press, 1981
- Bogart by A. M. Sperber and Eric Lax, William Morrow & Co, 1997
- Hollywood’s Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration by Thomas Doherty, Columbia University Press, 2007
- Howard Hughes: The Untold Story by Peter Harry Brown & Pat H. Broeske, Da Capo Press, 1996
- America In The 1940s (Decades of American History) by Charles A. Wills, Facts on File, Inc, 2006
- Historical Dictionary of the 1950s by James S Olson, Greenwood Press, 2000
- Scoundrel Time by Lillian Hellman, Back Bay Books, 1976
- The Way We Really Were: The Golden State in the 2nd Great War by Roger W. Lotchin (Editor), University of Illinois Press, 2000
- A Child of the Century by Ben Hecht, Primus, 1954
- The 1930s (Decades of the 20th Century) by Nicholas Yapp
- The 1940s (Decades of the 20th Century) by Nicholas Yapp
- The 1950s (Decades of the 20th Century) by Nicholas Yapp
- The Golden Days of San Simeon and the Hollywood stars who glittered there by Ken Murray, Murmar Publishing; Reprint. edition (1995
- Mr. Confidential: The Man, the Magazine & the Movieland Massacre by Samuel Bernstein, Walford Press, 2006
- The Fifties: The Way We Really Were by Douglas T. Miller & Marion Nowak , Doubleday, 1975
- Hollywood in the Thirties by John Baxter, A. S. Barnes & Co., New York, 1968
- Los Angeles: The Enormous Village by John D. Weaver, Capra Press, 1980
- My Story by Ava Gardner, Bantam, 1990
- The Fifties by David Halberstam, Ballantine Books, 1994
- Dark Victory by Ed Sikov, Henry Holt & Co, 2007
- The Fifties: Transforming the Screen, 1950-1959 (History of the American Cinema) by Peter Lev, University of California Press, 2003
- The Fixers: Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickling and the MGM Publicity Machine by E. J. Fleming, McFarland & Co., 2005
- Metropolis in the making: Los Angeles in the 1920s – Edited by Tom Sitton and William Deverell
- …
- J. Edgar Hoover: the Man and the Secrets by Curt Gentry, W.W. Norton & Company, 1991
- The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s by Piers Brendon, Vintage Books, 2000
- Rock Hudson: His Story by Rock Hudson, Sara Davidson, Carroll & Graf publishers, 1986
- Hollywood Heat: Untold Stories of 1950s Hollywood by Steve Rowland, The Book Guild, 2008
- Moving Pictures: Memories of a Hollywood Prince by Budd Schulberg, Open Road Media, 2012
- Ingrid Bergman – A Personal Biography by Charlotte Chandler, Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2008
- …
- Southern California in the 1950s by Charles Phoenix, Angel City Press, 2011
- MGM – When The Lion Roars by Peter Hay, Turner Publishing, 1991
- A Star Is Born: The Making of the 1954 Movie and its 1983 Restoration by Ronald Haver, Perennial Library 1988
- MGM – Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot by by Steven Bingen, Stephen X. Sylvester, Michael Troyan, Santa Monica Press, 2011
- By Myself – And Then Some by Lauren Bacall, Harper, 2006
- Kay Thompson – from Funny Face to Eloise by Sam Irvin, Simon & Schuster, 2010
- The Civil War on the Screen by Jack Spears, A. S. Barnes & Co. 1977
- The Story of Hollywood by Gregory Jack Williams, BL Press, 2012
- The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler, Wallflower Press, 2003
- Mickey Cohen – the Life and Crimes of L.A.’s Most Notorious Mobster by Tere Tereba, ECW Press, 2012
- Los Feliz and the Silent Film Era by Donald a. Seligman, Sheridan Books Inc, 2013
- Sins of the City by Jim Heiman, Chonicle Books, 1999
- Stanwyck by Axel Madsen, HarperCollins, 1994
- The Hollywood Canteen by Lisa Mitchel and Bruce Torrance, BearManor Media, 2012
- The Westmores of Hollywood by Frank Westmore and Muriel Davidson, Lippincott, 1976
- Max Factor: The Man Who Changed the Faces of the World by Fred E. Baston, Arcade Publishing, 2008
- Edith Head’s Hollywood by Edith Head and Paddy Calistro, Angel City Press, 2008
- Tinseltown, Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood by William J. Mann, Harper, 2014
- LA Noir by John Buntin, Broadway Books, 2009
- Close up on “Sunset Boulevard” by Sam Staggs, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2002
- Studio Affairs by Vincent Sherman, University Press of Kentucky, 1996
- Mommie Dearest by Christina Crawford, William Morrow & Co., 1978
- Edmund Goulding’s Dark Victory: Hollywood’s Genius Bad Boy by Matthew Kennedy, University of Wisconsin Press, 2004
- The Genius of the System – Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era by Thomas Schatz, University of Wisconsin Press, 2010
- Dream Palaces – Hollywood at Home by Charles Lockwood, Viking Press, 1981
- All About ‘All About Eve’ by Sam Staggs, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2001
- It’s the Pictures that got Small – Charles Bracket on Billy Wilder and Hollywood’s Golden Age – Edited by Anthony Slide, Columbia University Press, 2015
- Zanuck: the rise and fall of Hollywood’s Last Tycoon by Leonard Mosley, Little, Brown & Co, 1984
- Mary Astor’s Purple Diary by Edward Sorel, Liveright, 2016
- Uncommon Knowledge by Judy Lewis, Pocket Books, 1994
- Goddess of Love Incarnate: the Life of Stripteuse of Lili St. Cyr by Leslie Zemeckis, Counterpoint 2015
- Fifth Ave, 5AM: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman by Sam Wesson, Harper Perennial, 2010
- Memo from Darryl F. Zanuck: The Golden Years at Twentieth Century-Fox – Edited Rudy Behlmer, Grove Press, 1993
- The Real Nick and Nora: Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, Writers of Stage and Screen Classics by David L. Goodrich, Southern Illinois University Press, 2001
- Smart Aleck: The wit, world, and life of Alexander Woollcott by Howard Teichmann, William Morrow & Co, 1976
- King Cohn by Bob Thomas, New Mellennium Press, 2000
- Detour: A Hollywood Story by Cheryl Crane, Arbor House Pub Co, 1988
- Madam Valentino by Michael Morris, Abbeville Press, 1991
- Dark Lover by Emily W. Leider, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2003
- Hollywood Godfather: The life and crimes of Billy Wilkerson by WR Wilkerson III, Chicago Review Press, 2018
- Hollywood Dreams Made Real: Irving Thalberg and the Rise of M-G-M by Mark A. Vieira, Abrams, 2008
- Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince by Mark A. Vieira, University of California Press, 2010
- Lion of Hollywood: the life and legend of Louis B. Mayer by Scott Eyman
- The Speed of Sound – Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution by Scott Eyman
- Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille by Scott Eyman
- Norma Shearer: A Life by Gavin Lambert
- Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood: Celebrity Gossip and American Conservatism by Jennifer Frost, NYU Press, 2011
- Hedda and Louella by George Eells
- Don’t Say Yes Until I Finish Talking by Mel Gussow
- Hollywood Victory by Christian Blauvelt
- 1939 Day by Day Gone with the Wind by Pauline Bartel
- The MGM Effect: How a Hollywood Studio Changed the World by Steven Bingen
- The 50 MGM Films that Transformed Hollywood: Triumphs, Blockbusters, and Fiascos by Steven Bingen
- The Star Machine by Janine Basinger
- Hollywood’s Lost Backlot by Steven Bingen
- Adventures of a Hollywood Secretary: Her private letters from inside the studios of the 1920s Edited by Cari Beauchamp
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