Lindsay Anderson
One of the advantages of reviewing is that you get to read books which otherwise you might never buy and never digest. I greatly profited from An Empire of Their Own by Neal Gabler (W.H. Allen, £12.99), the history of the Hollywood studio system. I knew the American cinema was largely created by European Jewish immigrants, but not to this extent. I also reviewed (twice) my friend Gavin Lambert's witty and absorbing biography of Norma Shearer (Hodder, £14.95), that wonderfully effec- tive actress, forever my favourite film star. Gerry Conlon's autobiography, Proved In- nocent (Hamish Hamilton, £12.99), is the story of the Guildford Four and their victimisation by the English establishment. Clear, not bitter: horribly worth reading. And try to get hold of Made in Hudders- field by Jack Ramsay (North of Watford Publishing, £14.95), whose text and pic- tures chronicle the industrial — and our — revolution with indignation and beauty.
They say Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a genius, but I've never got through A Hundred Years of Solitude. So I bought the paperback of Love in a Time of Cholera (Penguin, £5.99), but it is still open half- way through, face-down, beside my bed. Is this elaborately-textured romance really as good as they say?
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