The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks (2023 fiction)

This is one of those books that you don’t realize is a really good book until you’re almost done reading it. The story begins with a comic book. The first character is the comic artist, and there are actual comic book pages bound into the book so you can see what the drawings look like. When you start reading about the comic artist, you have no idea where his story is going. And that is the format for the rest of the book, as you meet the director, the producer, and various actors and participants in the making of the film. When you meet these people, you get a fairly detailed description of their lives, their backgrounds, and eventually how they fit into the film company and the film itself. The descriptions of filmmaking are thorough and possibly more than you needed to know, but the information is interesting. Another very uncommon detail in this book is that there are many, many footnotes that are used to explain an action or an acronym. I thought this was a very well-written book, and the characters and scenes are realistic. You don’t need to be a fan of comic books or superheroes or movies made from comic books to enjoy reading this.

Reviewed by Ginger Russell