Bambi vs. Godzilla (2007)

WORDS TO THE WISE The dictionary gets a workout in Mamet's look at the Hollywood machine, but the insights aren't really boffo

If you learn nothing else from Bambi vs. Godzilla, David Mamet's book about Hollywood's inner workings — based on the Oscar nominee's own wheelings and dealings in L.A. — it's that his vocabulary is a lot better than yours. Concupiscent? For a guy who writes such succinctly explicit dialogue, his prose can get grossly verbose. Mamet's observations on the film industry aren't exactly illuminating — he's shocked, shocked, to find that there's greed and bad taste going on here — but at least he offers some savvy words of wisdom to prospective screenwriters. ''Storytelling,'' he advises, ''is like sex. We all do it naturally. Some of us are better at it than others.''