Charlie Kaufman Books in Order

This screenplay follows a struggling puppeteer who takes an office job and discovers a portal into actor John Malkovich's mind. The bizarre opportunity turns personal desire and the wish to become someone else into a surreal comedy about identity.

Kaufman's screenplay turns the task of adapting Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief into a story about writing itself. An orchid collector, a journalist, and a struggling screenwriter become entwined as the writer inserts himself and his twin into the film.

This satirical screenplay follows an obsessive scientist and a female naturalist who discover a man raised in the wild. Their competing impulses expose the contradictions of a society that celebrates nature while insisting on manners, control, and conformity.

After discovering that Clementine has erased their relationship from her memory, Joel seeks the same treatment. Kaufman's screenplay follows his struggle inside his own memories as the wish to forget collides with his attachment to their shared past.

Theater director Caden Cotard attempts an ever-expanding production that recreates life inside a vast warehouse. This screenplay blurs actors and their subjects as his artistic ambition becomes entangled with illness, failing relationships, time, and mortality.

This illustrated companion combines an abridged screenplay, film images, and photographs of the puppets and miniature sets. It revisits a lonely motivational speaker's encounter with Lisa while revealing how Kaufman and Duke Johnson created their stop-motion film.

Film critic B. Rosenberger Rosenberg discovers an extraordinary stop-motion movie that is subsequently destroyed, leaving him its only witness. His attempt to reconstruct it from memory spirals into a surreal exploration of art, identity, obsession, and contemporary culture.