Silver Screen Fiend

Learning About Life from an Addiction to Film

By: Patton Oswalt

Narrated by: Patton Oswalt

The instant New York Times bestseller from author, comedian and actor Patton Oswalt, a “heartfelt and hilarious” (USA TODAY) memoir about coming of age as a performer during the late 1990s while obsessively watching classic films at a legendary theater in Los Angeles. “[Oswalt has] a set of synapses like a pinball machine and a prose style to match” (The New York Times).

Between 1995 and 1999, Patton Oswalt lived with an unshakable addiction. It wasn’t drugs, alcohol, or sex: it was film. After moving to Los Angeles, Oswalt became a huge film buff (or as he calls it, a sprocket fiend), absorbing classics, cult hits, and new releases at the famous New Beverly Cinema. Silver screen celluloid became Patton’s life schoolbook, informing his notion of acting, writing, comedy, and relationships.

Set in the nascent days of LA’s alternative comedy scene, Silver Screen Fiend chronicles Oswalt’s journey from fledgling stand-up comedian to self-assured sitcom actor, with the colorful New Beverly collective and a cast of now-notable young comedians supporting him all along the way. “Clever and readable...Oswalt’s encyclopedic knowledge and frothing enthusiasm for films (from sleek noir classics, to gory B movies, to cliché-riddled independents, to big empty blockbusters) is relentlessly present, whirring in the background like a projector” (The Boston Globe). More than a memoir, this is “a love song to the silver screen” (Paste Magazine).

'My Dinner with Andre' Meets 'A Season in Hell'

Using an impressive confessionatory style, Patton Oswalt talks about his love of film and the dangers of overindulgence in your passion to the exclusion of all else. And he talks about film: brilliantly, passionately and critically. It's also, strangely, a love-song to Los Angeles' Cinema Revival Houses and the act of going to the movies.

I devoured it compulsively. I recommend you do the same.

Wow what a great memoir!

This memoir was truly inspiring and a great story of the struggles of life with any addiction. But being a "sprocket fiend" is one of the greatest to read about. It's truly a treasure to have someone as talented and entertaining as Patton Oswalt write and read his own work and I look forward to all he has to offer in the future

a fun reminisce of 90s LA and SF

really enjoyed Patton's take on movies fame and the passion of a sprocket freak in mid 90s LA. This isn't just a see how clever I am comedian looking for attention kind of book. But an interesting examination about how we hide from life and eventually evolve

Patton weaves an engrossing tale

Fantastic story with a final lesson about living life, instead of watching other's idea of what life is.

for the film nerds

it's another thing that is training me to go to California to go to the west for movies abd comedy.
or in other words: meh.......