William Goldman Books in Order

Ray Trevitt wants a bigger life than the one waiting for him in the Midwest, but love, ambition, and adulthood keep shifting the target. Goldman's first novel is a restless coming-of-age story about trying to matter.

Set at a peacetime Army camp, this early novel follows an unlikely friendship between two enlisted men as jokes and hustle give way to loneliness and need. Goldman finds both comedy and real tenderness in barracks life.

Five young people head toward New York carrying big plans, bad luck, and more damage than they admit. Goldman uses their crossed lives to show how ambition, sex, and the city can wear people down.

Goldman focuses on a teenage boy stumbling through first love, longing, and the confusion of growing up. It is short, intimate, and full of the awkward intensity of wanting more than you can name.

Amos McCracken has written a hit song, but success does nothing to simplify his marriage or his sense of himself. Goldman turns domestic trouble into a sharp, uneasy novel about ego, love, and drift.

Goldman's Oscar-winning screenplay gives the famous outlaws wit, melancholy, and a real friendship at the center. It is funny until it is not, and it knows the West is running out of room.

Goldman spends the 1967 to 1968 Broadway season watching shows rise and fail, then writes about the money, ego, craft, and backstage politics around them. It is reporting, gossip, and criticism all at once.

In this sequel to The Thing of It Is, a divorced Amos McCracken spends a day with his daughter while his work and personal life wobble around him. Goldman keeps the scale small and the emotional pressure high.

Part fairy tale, part comic fake abridgment, this novel follows Buttercup, Westley, swordsmen, schemers, and one unforgettable revenge quest. Goldman plays every adventure trope straight and sideways at the same time.

Babe Levy is a Columbia graduate student and marathon runner who thinks his life is ordinary until a Nazi fugitive and shadowy agents close in. Goldman's thriller turns family loyalty and historical horror into relentless suspense.

After losing her parents and the blanket that helps her feel safe, a little girl begins an adventure that is both sad and hopeful. Goldman's rare children's book treats grief seriously without losing its sense of wonder.

Corky Withers becomes a star when he teams up with a filthy-minded ventriloquist's dummy named Fats, but success brings him close to collapse. The novel works as both backstage drama and unnerving psychological horror.

Part war history, part production companion, this book walks through Operation Market Garden and the challenge of turning it into a large-scale film. Goldman is interested in both the battle and the storytelling problem.

Hollywood is the stage for this multi-character novel about fame, desire, and the way the movie business chews through people's hopes. Goldman keeps the glamour in view, but he is more interested in the damage underneath.

A government experiment aimed at changing the future by tampering with the past spirals into a tense, strange thriller. Goldman mixes police work, paranoia, and time-travel ideas without ever letting the danger feel distant.

Goldman opens up Hollywood from the writer's chair, mixing war stories, blunt advice, and a practical look at how scripts become movies. It is funny, skeptical, and still useful for anyone curious about screenwriting.

In a playful tale signed by Goldman's imaginary S. Morgenstern, tone-deaf Luigi dreams of becoming a true Venetian gondolier. The story explains why gondoliers stopped singing, and it does it with charm and melancholy.

Charles Fuller grows from damaged college writer into published novelist, carrying family grief and fresh losses with him. One of Goldman's most personal books, it follows the messy cost of turning life into material.

Nick Escalante is a Las Vegas chaperone, knife expert, and gambler trying to earn enough money to leave town for good. When a friend is brutally attacked, his private code pulls him into mob trouble and worse odds.

Years after Marathon Man, Babe Levy is still living with the damage when his brother's world pulls him back toward espionage and danger. The sequel is stranger, darker, and built around family ties that never stay buried.

Goldman and Mike Lupica track a wild New York sports year in alternating voices, one a superfan, the other a columnist on the beat. It captures the joy, ego, and heartbreak that keep people coming back.

A killer who hides behind costumes stalks women across New York, turning the city into a theater of nerves and disguise. Goldman builds the novel around a smart, nasty game of pursuit and performance.

Goldman compares two very different judging jobs, the Cannes Film Festival and the Miss America pageant, with a sharp eye for spectacle and nonsense. It is a funny memoir about fame, taste, and public performance.

This collection gathers Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Marathon Man, The Princess Bride, and Misery, each paired with a short essay about how the film came together. It is a strong entry point for readers who want the work and the craft talk together.

In Goldman's screenplay adaptation, a master thief witnesses a violent crime tied to the White House and becomes the one loose end everyone wants erased. It is a lean political thriller about power, fear, and cover-ups.

This essay collection returns to Hollywood with Goldman's usual mix of craft talk, skepticism, and strong opinions about studios, stars, and the Oscars. It is breezy, blunt, and often very funny.

Goldman's screenplay turns the true Tsavo lion attacks into a survival story about a railway engineer facing terror in colonial East Africa. Men, machines, and empire all look fragile once the killing starts.

Goldman revisits the film business with more stories about stalled projects, rewrites, studio politics, and the maddening life of a working screenwriter. It is part memoir, part masterclass, and part survival guide.

This script book follows four old friends on a Maine hunting trip that becomes an alien nightmare of infection, memory, and siege. Goldman and Lawrence Kasdan adapt Stephen King's wild horror story for the screen.

This nonfiction book looks at a scholarship and mentoring program built to help underserved students become leaders for social change. The focus is on access, resilience, and the practical work of supporting talent.