
David Thompson did something kind of similar recently with the Great Stars series of books about Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, and Bette Davis. I can personally attest that the Bogart one, at least, was pretty amazing. I think these sorts of books—thin, focused, attractive—make for a great, intense reading experience; you can put one away in an afternoon and you come away knowing a lot more about one particular subject. I don't read that many magazines these days, but I'd love to walk into a specialized bookstore and find hundreds of these long essay books. They fill the same need as magazines.