The Academy Awards Handbook 20

by John Harkness and John Harkness

Includes a year-by-year listing of all nominations and winners in every category, from Best Picture to Best Live-Action Short, hundreds of star photographs, and an easy-to-use quick-reference index.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786015527
• ISBN13: 9780786015528
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Pinnacle Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 7.1"

Customer Reviews

Worth The Modest Price Tag

The ACADEMY AWARDS HANDBOOK is not a comprehensive source of information about the Academy Awards but it is instead a handy reference book which gives a complete listing of the Oscars by year. Any rules changes for the Awards competition are noted immediately following each year's listing.The book also includes a short description of each year's Oscar highlights and a list of the 100 best American films according to a poll conducted by the American Film Institute in 1998. CITIZEN KANE is No.l on the list. The ACADEMY AWARDS HANDBOOK is definitely true to its title and it is well worth the modest price tag.

Very, very useful if you have specific info you want.

I've found two books about the Academy Awards which contain lots of interesting information. The "Academy Awards Handbook" both through its year-by-year arrangement and its extensive index allows me to quickly find the specific information I'm looking for. The other book "The Envelope, Please," has lots of delightful information but the table of contents listing is rather cutesy (What exactly would you expect to find under "Missed Opportunities" or "First and Foremost"?) and there's NO index; it has to be read as a novel and has essentially no usefulness as a reference work!

Interesting, useful, and witty

The most readable and comprehensive Academy Awards book I have encountered, this is light and enjoyable reading. The commentary at the end of each synopsis is filled with information and opinions of the author, which are often very funny. This book is definitely a must for all followers of the Oscars. I only hope there'll be future editions.

Very handy and an essential guide for oscar or film buffs

I use this as sort of an encyclopedia, like if i wonder if someone has ever won an academy award, use the index it has and see the page number and find out ever nomination and ever oscar that person has ever had/won. The index also has movies. It also has a method to tell the winners in the oscar ceremony.

Oscar is Naked!

Film critic John Harkness leaves no sacred cow undesecrated in his latest version of The Academy Awards Handbook. In addition to a comprehensive listing of each year's nominees, Harkness tells who won, who lost, and why, in a witty style that runs the gamut from tongue-in-cheek to iron-fist-in-velvet-glove. Even the non-gambler should find the concluding chapter, "Predicting the Oscars: Winning Your Office Pool," worth the price of the book. If up to this point the reader still clings to any notion of the Academy as an austere, noble organization in service of the betterment of mankind, this Oscars-as-business dissection shows "the man behind the curtain" for all to see. If you're looking for a sentimental, fawning look at the film industry, look elsewhere. John Harkness may not have made many friends in Hollywood by calling the Oscars "a Tiffany lamp in a whorehouse," but grateful readers will find his candor and wit a refreshing change from the motion picture hype machine.