Isherwood, Christopher. Bucknell, Katherine (ed.) Liberation Dairies volume three: 1970 - 1983, London : Chatto and Windus, 2012.

The final instalment in the trilogy that is the Isherwood dairies.

The three volumes in toto add up to roughly 2,500 pages. 

The triumph of these fascinating memoirs, aside from their emotional honesty, wit and historical interest, lies as much with Katherine Bucknell - as with the author himself.  For Bucknell proves to be an empathetic editor as well as a painstaking one.  Her introductions to each volume are a joy to read.

We follow Isherwood through the years, and become intimate eavesdroppers into his life as a screenwriter.  We are also witness to his enduring relationship with Don Bachardy and his many Hollywood friends.  Isherwood realised that the Diaries would be published after his death.  Indeed they do tell-all.  Yet some identities remain censored, thirty years on. 

VIDEO: Christoper and Don (trailer)

Isherwood, Christopher. A single man, London : Methuen, 1965.

This is Christopher Isherwood's most autobiographical novel.  He casts himself as the protagonist, George, a university professor mourning the death of his male lover, Jim, and suffering much more than a mid-life crisis.

The appeal of the book lies in its emotional honesty and realism as George interacts with neighbours, students, friends and a possible new lover, a man nearly thirty years junior.  Isherwood has frozen a moment in time.  

Colin Firth won a Best Actor Oscar for his devastating performance as George in the movie version of 2010.

Lambert, Gavin. The slide area: scenes of a Hollywood life, London : Serpent's Tail, 1997.

Gavin Lambert was ideally placed to delve into Hollywood's less public face, for he was a major force in the "dream factory",as a screen writer.  In his later years, Lambert moved into non-fiction and produced biographies such as Oh Cukor (a study of film director George Cukor) and film stars Norma Shearer and Natalie wood

He also wrote fiction - producing seven novels. The first of which was The Slide Area: Scenes of a Hollywood Life (1959), in fact more a collection of episodes than a novel.  It comprises 20 scenes of contemporary Los Angeles life in all manner of locations.  It is indeed a road map to fiction!

Lambert is unafraid of delving into the seedy side and his cast of characters feature the rejects of Hollywood, those who are in some way casualties of the fame game - or just life in general.  This work will to film students who seek inspiration in different forms of story-telling.  The language used is frank, original and often very funny.