I’m thinking of going to the Gene Autry Western museum in Griffith Park this weekend. See if there’s anything that helps my ideas for the new book.

(That’s the new new book; the new book, a big historical in the same vein as The Kingdom of Bones and from the same Random House imprint, is written and wrapped and I’ll have a confirmed title and a publication date to give you soon)

I picked up Richard Alleman’s Hollywood: The Movie Lovers’ Guide earlier this week. Loads of historic Hollywood sites and addresses with the history behind each – not really for your average tourist, who probably doesn’t give a crap about where DW Griffiths’ Intolerance set once stood, or the house where George ‘Superman’ Reeves shot himself (not far from where I’m living, it seems), but engrossing for some of us. Apparently the Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant that I pass every day on my way to the studio is quite historic. As these things go.

And there’s a closed apartment above the carousel on Santa Monica pier that was opened up and rented out to filmmakers in the 1960s, where Curtis Harrington shot NIGHT TIDE – a little B&W indie horror movie that no one’s heard of and which took me years to track down, until Stephen Laws steered me to a copy. Dennis Hopper’s first lead role and a story about an off-duty sailor who falls for a sideshow performer who may or may not be a real mermaid… if you know The Boat House, you’ll know why I was drawn to it.