Matthew Specktor's Books

Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California

By: Matthew Specktor

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California

By: Matthew Specktor

A Best Book of the Year at The Atlantic Los Angeles Times Bestseller "[An] absorbing and revealing book. . . . nestling in the fruitful terrain between memoir and criticism." —Geoff Dyer, author of Out of Sheer Rage Blending memoir and cultural criticism, Matthew Specktor explores family legacy, the lives of artists, and a city that embodies both dreams and disillusionment. In 2006, Matthew Specktor moved into a crumbling Los Angeles apartment opposite the one in which F. Scott Fitzgerald spent the last moments of his life. Fitz had been Specktor’s first literary idol, someone whose own passage through Hollywood had, allegedly, broken him. Freshly divorced, professionally flailing, and reeling from his mother’s cancer diagnosis, Specktor was feeling unmoored. But rather than giving in or “cracking up,” he embarked on an obsessive journey to make sense of the mythologies of “success” and “failure” that haunt the artist’s life and the American imagination. Part memoir, part cultural history, part portrait of place, Always Crashing in the Same Car explores Hollywood through a certain kind of collapse. It’s a vibrant and intimate inspection of failure told through the lives of iconic, if under-sung, artists—Carole Eastman, Eleanor Perry, Warren Zevon, Tuesday Weld, and Hal Ashby, among others—and the author’s own family history. Through this constellation of Hollywood figures, he unearths a fascinating alternate history of the city that raised him and explores the ways in which curtailed ambition, insufficiency, and loss shape all our lives. At once deeply personal and broadly erudite, it is a story of an art form (the movies), a city (Los Angeles), and one person’s attempt to create meaning out of both. Above all, Specktor creates a moving search for optimism alongside the inevitability of failure and reveals the still-resonant power of art to help us navigate the beautiful ruins that await us all.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

259

Publisher

Tin House Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1951142632

ISBN 13

9781951142636

American Dream Machine

By: Matthew Specktor

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

American Dream Machine

By: Matthew Specktor

The story of two talent agents and their three troubled boys, heirs to Hollywood royalty; a sweeping narrative about fathers and sons, the movie business, and the sundry sea changes that have shaped Hollywood and, by extension, American life. American Dream Machine is the story of an iconic striver, a classic self-made man in the vein of Jay Gatsby or Augie March. It's the story of a talent agent and his troubled sons, two generations of Hollywood royalty. It's a sweeping narrative about parents and children, the movie business, and the sundry sea changes that have shaped Hollywood, and by extension, American life. Beau Rosenwald—overweight, not particularly handsome, and improbably charismatic—arrives in Los Angeles in 1962 with nothing but an ill-fitting suit and a pair of expensive brogues. By the late 1970s he has helped found the most successful agency in Hollywood. Through the eyes of his son, we watch Beau and his partner go to war, waging a seismic battle that redraws the lines of an entire industry. We watch Beau rise and fall and rise again, in accordance with the cultural transformations that dictate the fickle world of movies. We watch Beau's partner, the enigmatic and cerebral Williams Farquarsen, struggle to contain himself, to control his impulses and consolidate his power. And we watch two generations of men fumble and thrive across the LA landscape, learning for themselves the shadows and costs exacted by success and failure. Mammalian, funny, and filled with characters both vital and profound, American Dream Machine is a piercing interrogation of the role—nourishing, as well as destructive—that illusion plays in all our lives.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

350

Publisher

Tin House Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1935639455

ISBN 13

9781935639459

American Dream Machine

By: Matthew Specktor

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

American Dream Machine

By: Matthew Specktor

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

350

Publisher

Tin House Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1935639455

ISBN 13

9781935639459

Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California

By: Matthew Specktor

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California

By: Matthew Specktor

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

259

Publisher

Tin House Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1951142632

ISBN 13

9781951142636

The Sting

A Novel Approach to Cinema

By: Matthew Specktor

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Sting

A Novel Approach to Cinema

By: Matthew Specktor

From Melville to Madoff, the Confidence Man is an essential American archetype. George Roy Hill’s 1973 film The Sting treats this theme with a characteristic dexterity. The movie was warmly received in its time, winning seven Academy Awards, but there were some who thought the movie was nothing more than a slight throwback. Pauline Kael, among others, felt Hill’s film was mechanical and contrived: a callow and manipulative attempt to recapture the box-office success of Robert Redford and Paul Newman’s prior pairing, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid. Matthew Specktor’s passionate, lyric meditation turns The Sting on its head, on its side, and right-side-up in an effort to unpack the film’s giddy complexity and secret, melancholic heart. Working off interviews with screenwriter David S. Ward and producer Tony Bill, and tacking from nuanced interpretation of its arching moods and themes to gimlet-eyed observation of its dizzying sleights-of-hand, Specktor opens The Sting up to disclose the subtle and stunning dimensions—sexual, political, and aesthetic—of Hill’s best film. Through Specktor’s lens, The Sting reveals itself as both an enduring human drama and a meditation on art-making itself, an ode to the necessary pleasure of being fooled at the movies.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

129

Publisher

Catapult

Published Date

ISBN 10

1593762798

ISBN 13

9781593762797

Heather, the Totality

By: Matthew Weiner

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Heather, the Totality

By: Matthew Weiner

Named a Barnes & Noble Best Book of the Year: The explosive debut novel about family, power, and privilege from the creator of the award-winning Mad Men. Mark and Karen Breakstone have constructed the idyllic life of wealth and status they always wanted, made complete by their beautiful and extraordinary daughter Heather. But they are still not quite at the top. When the new owners of the penthouse above them begin construction, an unstable stranger penetrates the security of their comfortable lives and threatens to destroy everything they've created.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

Publisher

Little, Brown

Published Date

ISBN 10

0316435309

ISBN 13

9780316435307

Some Kind of Hero

The Remarkable Story of the James Bond Films

By: Matthew Field,Ajay Chowdhury,George Lazenby

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Some Kind of Hero

The Remarkable Story of the James Bond Films

By: Matthew Field,Ajay Chowdhury,George Lazenby

For over 50 years, Albert R. Broccoli’s Eon Productions has navigated the ups and downs of the volatile British film industry, enduring both critical wrath and acclaim in equal measure for its now legendary James Bond series. Latterly, this family run business has been crowned with box office gold and recognised by motion picture academies around the world. However, it has not always been plain sailing. Changing financial regimes forced 007 to relocate to France and Mexico; changing fashions and politics led to box office disappointments; and changing studio regimes and business disputes all but killed the franchise. And the rise of competing action heroes has constantly questioned Bond’s place in popular culture. But against all odds the filmmakers continue to wring new life from the series, and 2012’s Skyfall saw both huge critical and commercial success, crowning 007 as the undisputed king of the action genre. Some Kind of Hero recounts this remarkable story, from its origins in the early ‘60s right through to the present day, and draws on hundreds of unpublished interviews with the cast and crew of this iconic series.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

751

Publisher

The History Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0750966505

ISBN 13

9780750966504

The Sting

A Novel Approach to Cinema

By: Matthew Specktor

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Sting

A Novel Approach to Cinema

By: Matthew Specktor

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

Publisher

Catapult

Published Date

ISBN 10

1593764545

ISBN 13

9781593764548

The Sting

By: Matthew Specktor,Sean Howe

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Sting

By: Matthew Specktor,Sean Howe

The Sting was rapturously received upon its 1973 release; George Roy Hill's film made a box-office killing and won seven Academy Awards. Some critics, though, have dismissed it as slight, a callow exploitation of the charismatic pairing of Robert Redford and Paul Newman. Matthew Specktor's passionate, lyric interrogation turns The Sting on its head, on its side and right-side-up to unpack the film's giddy complexity and secret, melancholic heart. With nuanced interpretation of its arching moods and themes, and gimlet-eyed observation of its dizzying sleights-of-hand, Specktor reveals The Sting as both an enduring human drama and a meditation on art-making itself, an ode to the necessary pleasure of being fooled at the movies.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

111

Publisher

Soft Skull Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1593762798

ISBN 13

9781593762797

Hollywood dream machine

By: Matthew Specktor

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Hollywood dream machine

By: Matthew Specktor

Quand Beau Rosenwald débarque à Los Angeles, en 1962, il n'a qu'un costume dépareillé et une paire de chaussures de luxe. À la fin des années 1970, il a cofondé et dirige la plus prestigieuse agence de stars d'Hollywood. Par les yeux de son fils illégitime Nate, le narrateur , on suit Beau et son partenaire se lancer dans une bataille dont les répercussions modifieront en profondeur l'industrie du cinéma. Se croisent alors deux générations d'hommes. Les pères ont réussi malgré d'innombrables revers, mais le déclin les guette. Au début des années 1990, leurs fils Nate, Severin et William pas encore âgés de 25 ans, avancent à tâtons, cherchent leurs marques, aspirent sinon à la gloire, du moins à se faire une place au soleil. Et font la fête. Une plongée dans les coulisses d'Hollywood, qui dénonce le rôle que joue l'illusion dans nos vies...

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

386

Publisher

Archipel

Published Date

ISBN 10

2809818347

ISBN 13

9782809818345

Book's by Matthew Specktor

Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California

Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California

American Dream Machine

American Dream Machine

American Dream Machine

American Dream Machine

Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California

Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California

The Sting

The Sting

Heather, the Totality

Heather, the Totality

Some Kind of Hero

Some Kind of Hero

The Sting

The Sting

The Sting

The Sting

Hollywood dream machine

Hollywood dream machine

Username

Password

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email