Motion picture industry book series in reading order

by Jackie Collins

by Loren D. Estleman

by Franklin W. Dixon

Jackie Collins

40 books• 6 series

Jackie Collins wrote about Hollywood, the film business and the women who fought their way through it. 40 catalogued books run from The World Is Full of Married Men (1960) through The Stud (1969), The Love Killers (1974), The World Is Full Of Divorced Women (1975) and Lovers and Gamblers (1977), ending at The Santangelos. Lucky Santangelo is the character Collins is best known for, joined by the Madison Castelli and Fontaine Khaled books. The catalogue is likely complete.

Karen Kingsbury is an American Christian novelist, born in Fairfax, Virginia, on June 8, 1963. Kingsbury worked as a sports writer for the Los Angeles Times and later wrote for the Los Angeles Daily News. Missy's Murder (1991), Kingsbury's first book, grew out of a murder story covered as a reporter in Los Angeles. Kingsbury is a #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling novelist. The catalogue holds 115 titles, running to The Christmas Ring (2025), and the series include Firstborn, Sunrise, Above the Line, Bailey Flanigan, Red Gloves and Forever Faithful. Christian fiction and family life recur among the subjects.

Terence Faherty, born 1954, is an American writer of mystery novels. Two detective sequences organise the catalogue, Owen Keane Mystery and Scott Elliott Mystery, and both Owen Keane and Scott Elliott are recorded as fictitious characters. Private investigators, murder, the motion picture industry, legal material, Indiana, New Jersey and Hollywood sit among the subjects. The 24 books run from Deadstick (1991) to The Cardboard Box (2019), with Live To Regret (1992), The Lost Keats (1993) and Die Dreaming (1994) early in the sequence. The median book is 250 pages.

Rowan Coleman writes contemporary fiction and children's books, and publishes the Bronte Sisters Mysteries as Bella Ellis. The Ruby Parker novels, about a child actor, run from 2005 to 2007 and take in Ruby Parker Hits the Small Time, Ruby Parker: Soap Star, Ruby Parker: Film Star and Ruby Parker: Hollywood Star. Motherhood carries the adult fiction, in The Accidental Mother (2005), Mommy by Mistake (2007) and The Baby Group (2007), and Sophie Mills is her other series. The 30 catalogued books open with Growing Up Twice (2002) and close with A Gift of Poison (2023).

Stuart Woods

104 books• 9 series

Crime and detective thrillers make up Stuart Woods's catalogue of 104 titles, running from Blue Water, Green Skipper (1977) to Finders Keepers (2025). The Barrington Universe, built around the recurring character Stone Barrington, is the largest strand; Teddy Fay, Ed Eagle and Rick Barron head further series, with standalone novels and non-fiction beside them. Private investigators, police and New York settings recur through the subject tags.

Loren D. Estleman

122 books• 10 series

Loren D. Estleman, born September 15, 1952, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is an American author of detective fiction and westerns. Estleman is known for crime novels featuring Amos Walker, a private investigator, and Detroit recurs in the subject headings. Page Murdock, US Deputy Marshal, Peter Macklin, Valentino and Detroit are the other series. The catalogue counts 122 books from Red Highway (1976) to Man One (2026), and Motor City Blue appeared in 1980.

William Goldman

29 books• 2 series

William Goldman (1931-2018) was an American novelist, screenwriter and playwright whose career ran across seven decades and produced 16 novels and numerous screenplays. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) took him the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay along with BAFTA and Golden Globe awards, and All the President's Men (1976) the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The 29 catalogued titles open with The Temple of Gold (1957) and include Boys and Girls Together (1964), The Princess Bride (1973) and Marathon Man (1974).

Who HQ is the credit on 429 children's nonfiction biographies in the catalogue, published from 2002 to 2026. The run opens with Who Was Albert Einstein?, Who Was Amelia Earhart? and Who Was Ben Franklin? (all 2002) and reaches Who Is Vera Wang (2026). Subjects include biography, history and juvenile nonfiction for readers aged 8 to 12. Other names credited on some of the books include Megan Stine (7), John Hinderliter (7) and Nico Medina (4).

Budd Schulberg

20 books

Budd Schulberg (1914-2009), born Seymour Wilson Schulberg, was an American novelist, screenwriter, television producer and sports writer. What Makes Sammy Run? (1941) and The Harder They Fall (1947) are the novels most associated with Schulberg. The screenplay for On the Waterfront earned Schulberg an Academy Award, and A Face in the Crowd followed in 1957. The 20 catalogued books run from Company house (1935) to Ringside: A Treasury of Boxing Reportage (2006). Subjects include Hollywood, boxing and organized crime.

Across 194 catalogued books, Danielle Steel writes contemporary romance and family drama: love stories, marriages, widowhood and the turns that reshape a life. The run starts with Going Home (1973) and continues through Celebration, with 24 Hours scheduled for 2027. Steel's catalogue also holds children's picture books, short stories and non-fiction beside the standalone novels that make up most of it.

Jeffery Deaver, born May 6, 1950, is an American writer of mystery and crime fiction. Deaver holds a journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a J.D. from Fordham University, and worked as a journalist and then a lawyer before turning to novels. Awards include the Crime Writers' Association Steel Dagger and Short Story Dagger, the Nero Award and three Ellery Queen Reader's Awards for Best Short Story of the Year. The catalogue counts 121 Deaver books from 1984 to The Collateral Heart (2026), with Freeze Frame due in 2027. Lincoln Rhyme, Kathryn Dance, Colter Shaw and John Pellam are recurring characters.

Sophie Kinsella

37 books• 4 series

Sophie Kinsella was the pen name of Madeleine Sophie Wickham (12 December 1969 to 10 December 2025), an English author best known for the Shopaholic series. The Kinsella catalogue holds 37 books from 1995 to 2024; early titles such as 40 Love / The Tennis Party (1995) and Cocktails for Three (2000) appeared under the name Madeleine Wickham. The first two Shopaholic books became the 2009 film Confessions of a Shopaholic, and Can You Keep a Secret? (2003) was filmed in 2019. Kinsella's books sold more than 50 million copies in over 60 countries. Shopping, weddings and Becky Bloomwood appear among the subjects.

Len Deighton, born Leonard Cyril Deighton on 18 February 1929, was a British writer of spy novels, cookery books and history who died on 15 March 2026. After national service in the Royal Air Force, Deighton studied at Saint Martin's School of Art and at the Royal College of Art, graduating from the latter in 1955. Work as a book and magazine illustrator followed, including the cover of the first UK edition of On the Road, along with a spell in advertising. The catalogue lists 40 Deighton books, with The IPCRESS File (1962), Funeral in Berlin (1964) and Billion-Dollar Brain (1966) among them. Series include Harry Palmer and Bernard Samson.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

79 books• 5 series

F. Scott Fitzgerald, born Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald on September 24, 1896, was an American novelist, essayist and short story writer who died on December 21, 1940. The Jazz Age is the era most tied to Fitzgerald, who spread the term through the story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald's output came to four novels, four story collections and 164 short stories; fortune arrived in the 1920s, and critical recognition followed only after death. The catalogue holds 79 books dated 1914 to 2020, including Flappers and Philosophers (1920), Bernice Bobs Her Hair (1920) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Stories (2020). Subjects name short stories, social customs and the nineteen twenties.

Gore Vidal

67 books• 6 series

Gore Vidal, born Eugene Louis Vidal on October 3, 1925, was an American writer and public intellectual noted for a cynical, epigrammatic wit, and died on July 31, 2012. Vidal's novels and essays attacked the social and sexual norms Vidal saw shaping American life. Born into an upper-class political family as grandson of U.S. Senator Thomas Gore, Vidal ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for the House of Representatives in New York in 1960 and for the Senate in California in 1982. The catalogue lists 67 books from Williwaw (1946) to I Told You So (2012), including In a Yellow Wood (1947), The City and the Pillar (1948) and Death Before Bedtime (1953). Narratives of Empire and Myra and Myron are among the series.

Upton Sinclair

116 books• 5 series

Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) was an American novelist, muckraking journalist and political activist, and the Democratic nominee for governor of California in 1934. The Jungle (1906) exposed labour and sanitary conditions in the United States meatpacking industry, and the uproar fed into the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act passed months later. Sinclair took the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The catalogue holds 116 titles from 1900 onward, including boys' adventure series set at West Point and Annapolis and the Lanny Budd novels.

Tilly Bagshawe, born Matilda Emily Mary Bagshawe on 12 June 1973, is a British author and journalist and a New York Times bestseller. Bagshawe is best known for continuing the work of the American author Sidney Sheldon, including Sidney Sheldon's Mistress of the Game and Sidney Sheldon's After the Darkness. Do Not Disturb (2008), Flawless (2009), Scandalous (2010), Fame (2011), Friends and Rivals (2012), One Summer's Afternoon (2013) and The Inheritance (2014) are among the 16 catalogued books, and The Secret Keepers (2024) is the newest. Swell Valley and An Iris Grey Mystery are the series, and the film industry, family secrets and inheritance appear in the subjects.

Alice Duncan has 60 catalogued books, from One Bright Morning (1995) to Spirits Adopted (2025). Historical romance and westerns are among the subjects, and some 1997 titles appear under the names Emma Craig and Rachel Wilson. Murder and investigation also appear among the subjects, and Daisy Gumm Majesty is a recurring character. Duncan's series include Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery, Mercy Allcutt Mystery, Dream Maker, Land of Enchantment, Meet Me at the Fair and Pecos Valley.

George MacDonald Fraser (2 April 1925 - 2 January 2008) was a British author and screenwriter. The Flashman Papers are the work Fraser is known for: eleven novels and one short-story collection built on the character Harry Paget Flashman. Fraser also wrote the Private McAuslan stories, non-fiction including The Steel Bonnets (1972), and screenplays - the James Bond film Octopussy, The Three Musketeers and both its sequels, and an adaptation of his own Royal Flash. Twenty-eight titles are catalogued, from Flashman (1969) onward.

Franklin W. Dixon is the author name on the Hardy Boys books, and the catalogue lists 473 titles under the Dixon name from 1927 to 2023. The Tower Treasure, The House on the Cliff and The Secret of the Old Mill all date from 1927. Dixon series include Hardy Boys Casefiles, Hardy Boys Adventures, Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers, Hardy Boys: Secret Files and Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Super Mystery, plus the Ted Scott Flying Stories. Undercover Bookworms (2023) is the newest title.

David Thomson

40 books• 4 series

David Thomson is a British film critic and historian, born on 18 February 1941, who works in the United States and has written more than 40 books. Two Thomson reference works, the 1,000-film guide Have You Seen...? (2008) and The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in a sixth edition (2014), are praised for literary quality and eccentricity, though some critics find them self-indulgent. Benjamin Schwarz of The Atlantic Monthly described Thomson as possibly the greatest living film critic and historian. The catalogue starts with Movie Man. (1967) and reaches A Sudden Flicker of Light (2026), including America in the Dark (1977) and Silver Light (1990).

Robert S. Levinson wrote mystery fiction built around Neil Gulliver and Stevie Marriner, the pair the catalogue records as a series. The film and music industries supply the settings: recorded subjects include journalists, actresses, the motion picture industry, the sound recording industry and Elvis Presley. The catalogue holds 25 books from The Elvis and Marilyn Affair (1999) through The James Dean Affair (2000), The John Lennon Affair (2001), Ask a Dead Man (2005) and The Traitor in Us All (2010), to Tap Dance: A Tall Tale of the Wild West (2019). The list is marked likely complete.

Louise Bagshawe, later credited as Louise Mensch, has 18 catalogued books from Career Girls (1995) to Career Game (2015). Subject tags point to romance, young women, businesswomen, ambition, revenge, friendship, Hollywood and the motion picture industry. The Movie (1996), Tall Poppies (1997), Venus Envy (1998), When She Was Bad (2001) and Tuesday's Child (2005) are among the titles. The median book length is 448 pages, and the catalogue treats the list as likely complete.

Lee Server was an American writer, born May 27, 1953, who died on December 28, 2021. Server graduated from New York University Film School and wrote several books about Hollywood cinema and pulp fiction. The catalogue lists 17 titles from The Hostage Mistress (1978) to Handsome Johnny (2018), including Screenwriter (1987), Sharks (1989) and Danger is My Business (1993). Two series appear under the name: World of Nature and World Traveler.