Paperbacks: Bambi Vs Godzilla, by David Mamet

This master class on the movie business will undoubtedly be avidly read in the Hollywood Hills. It is equally certain, however, that Mamet's views will be utterly ignored. His admirable view, "If you think you should cut, cut", runs counter to the sprawling epics of tedium that currently dominate mainstream cinema.

His choice of heroes (Noël Coward in In Which We Serve is "as fine an actor as you could hope to see") will largely be unknown by the current generation of film- makers. Yet if they followed his pithy advice Hollywood might once again start to make coherent, grown-up and well-crafted films.