Books set in the film industry

The 2024 Melbourne International Film Festival kicked off this week, so here are some great books set in the film industry to help you get extra excited about cinema and fill the time between screenings!


📽️Literary Fiction


The Whitewash by Siang Lu

It sounded like a good idea at the time: a Hollywood spy thriller, starring, for the first time in history, an Asian male lead. With an estimated $350 million production budget and up-and-coming Hong Kong actor JK Jr, who, let’s be honest, is not the sharpest tool in the shed, but probably the hottest, Brood Empire was basically a sure thing. Until it wasn’t.

So how did it all fall apart? Why is Brood Empire remembered now not as a historical landmark of Asian representation that smashed the bamboo ceiling in Hollywood, but rather as a fiasco of seismic proportions?


Actress by Anne Enright

This is the story of Irish theatre legend Katherine O'Dell, as told by her daughter Norah. It tells of early stardom in Hollywood, of highs and lows on the stages of Dublin and London’s West End. Katherine’s life is a grand performance, with young Norah watching from the wings.

But this romance between mother and daughter cannot survive Katherine’s past, or the world’s damage. As Norah uncovers her mother’s secrets, she acquires a few of her own. Then, fame turns to infamy when Katherine decides to commit a bizarre crime . . .


📽️Vintage Hollywood


The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ‘80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship and a great forbidden love.


Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

The story begins in 1962. Somewhere on a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and views an apparition: a beautiful woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an American starlet, he soon learns, and she is dying.

And the story begins again today, half a world away in Hollywood, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio’s back lot searching for the woman he last saw at his hotel fifty years before.


📽️Romance


Love from Scratch by Amy Hutton

Ethan James has a problem: he's about to start shooting a movie and he needs someone to mind his anxious dog, Harry. This film could make or break Ethan's career, and he knows he has to give it all his attention, but Harry's new minder turns out to be more of a hindrance than a help. She's gorgeous and funny, and throws so much shade in his direction that Ethan can't think straight.

Hazel Conor has a problem: she's just lost her job as a sous chef at the fancy beachside restaurant she uphauled her life for. And if she doesn't get another job soon, she won't be able to afford food - or worse, cat food, and then her grouchy cat Kevin will finally murder her in her sleep. So when she sees an ad for an easy dog minder job, she goes for it.


The View Was Exhausting by Mikaella Clements & Onjuli Datta

Whitman ‘Win’ Tagore and Leo Milanowski are the greatest love story of our time. International movie star meets the beautiful son of a millionaire. Their kisses write headlines and their fights break the internet . . . Nobody needs to know it’s not real.

Win knows that Hollywood demands perfection – especially from a woman of colour. Leo just wants to enjoy life, and shift press attention away from his dysfunctional family. Together they control the narrative.

Except Leo is hiding a secret that is about to send Win’s world spinning. Now everyone’s dream couple must confront the messy reality of their relationship. Just as they’re starting to realise that they might actually be falling in love . . .


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Cover image for The Whitewash

The Whitewash

Siang Lu

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