Book suggestions for A Star Is Born

Julie Crawford left Fort Wayne, Indiana, with dreams of being a Hollywood screenwriter. Unfortunately, her new life is off to a rocky start. When she is fired by the notoriously demanding director of Gone with the Wind, she's lucky to be rescued by Carole Lombard, whose scandalous affair with the still-married Clark Gable is just heating up. As Carole's assistant, Julie suddenly has a front-row seat to two of the world's greatest love affairs. And while Rhett and Scarlett -- and Lombard and Gable -- make movie history, Julie is caught up in a whirlwind of outsized personalities and overheated behind-the-scenes drama ... not to mention a budding romance of her own." -- Back cover.

The thirty-nine-year-old owner of an art gallery in Los Angeles, is reluctant to take her daughter, Isabelle, to meet her favorite boy band. But since her divorce, she’s more eager than ever to be close to Isabelle. The last thing Solène expects is to make a connection with one of the members of the world-famous August Moon. But Hayes Campbell is clever, winning, confident, and posh, and the attraction is immediate. That he is all of twenty years old further complicates things. What begins as a series of clandestine trysts quickly evolves into a passionate and genuine relationship. It is a journey that spans continents as Solène and Hayes navigate each other’s worlds: from stadium tours to international art fairs to secluded hideaways in Paris and Miami. For Solène, it is a reclaiming of self, as well as a rediscovery of happiness and love. When Solène and Hayes’ romance becomes a viral sensation, and both she and her daughter become the target of rabid fans and an insatiable media, Solène must face how her romantic life has impacted the lives of those she cares about most.

One of Entertainment Weekly's "5 Books to Read if You Loved A Star is Born" "More than a glitzy Hollywood tale... It's a surprisingly insightful, even poignant meditation on stardom."--Entertainment Weekly ("Must List") The celebrated author of The Myth of You and Me explores an untraditional love story through the lens of a character actor who must finally become the hero of her own story. After a series of missteps in the face of his newfound fame, actor Charlie Outlaw flees to a remote island in search of anonymity and a chance to reevaluate his recent breakup with his girlfriend, actress Josie Lamar. But soon after his arrival on the peaceful island, his solitary hike into the jungle takes him into danger he never anticipated. As Charlie struggles with gaining fame, Josie struggles with its loss. The star of a cult TV show in her early twenties, Josie has spent the twenty years since searching for a role to equal that one, and feeling less and less like her character, the heroic Bronwyn Kyle. As she gets ready for a reunion of the cast at a huge fan convention, she thinks all she needs to do is find a part and replace Charlie. But she can't forget him, and to get him back she'll need to be a hero in real life.

Years after separating, violinist Michael Holme is reunited with his former lover, pianist Julia McNicholl, during a musical tour of Vienna, unaware that she is hiding her increasing deafness, and together they must confront their feelings for each other and the music that both unites and divides them. Reprint. 40,000 first printing.

Stone Arabia, Dana Spiotta’s moving and intrepid third novel, is about family, obsession, memory, and the urge to create—in isolation, at the margins of our winner-take-all culture. In the sibling relationship, “there are no first impressions, no seductions, no getting to know each other,” says Denise Kranis. For her and her brother, Nik, now in their forties, no relationship is more significant. They grew up in Los Angeles in the late seventies and early eighties. Nik was always the artist, always wrote music, always had a band. Now he makes his art in private, obsessively documenting the work, but never testing it in the world. Denise remains Nik’s most passionate and acute audience, sometimes his only audience. She is also her family’s first defense against the world’s fragility. Friends die, their mother’s memory and mind unravel, and the news of global catastrophe and individual tragedy haunts Denise. When her daughter, Ada, decides to make a film about Nik, everyone’s vulnerabilities seem to escalate. Dana Spiotta has established herself as a “singularly powerful and provocative writer” (The Boston Globe) whose work is fiercely original. Stone Arabia—riveting, unnerving, and strangely beautiful—reexamines what it means to be an artist and redefines the ties that bind.

The lead singer and songwriter for the Red Hot Chili Peppers presents a searing, candid memoir that captures the bright and dark moments of his life and career, including his descent into drug addiction, and their influence on his musical evolution. 125,000 first printing.