2013 Oscar Nominated Films Based on Books

The 2013 Oscar nominations were announced this morning. Eleven book adaptations were nominated!

Argo based on the book, Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History by Antonio Mendez and Matt Baglio

The true, declassified account of CIA operative Tony Mendez's daring rescue of American hostages from Iran that inspired the critically-acclaimed film directed by and starring Ben Affleck, and co-starring John Goodman, Alan Arkin, and Bryan Cranston.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books to Film

 

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

For this week's Top Ten Tuesday I will be listing some of my favorite films that were books first.
In no particular order:

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to see -- yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion -- an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others.

In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who seems to anticipate their every move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's ancient secret -- and an explosive historical truth -- will be lost forever.

The film: I thought the film stayed pretty darn true to the book. It stars Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, and Jean Reno. Directed by Ron Howard.



Chocolat by Joanne Harris

Try me...Test me...Taste me. When an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, arrives in the French village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church, Father Reynaud identifies her as a serious danger to his flock - especially as it is the beginning of Lent, the traditional season of self-denial. War is declared as the priest denounces the newcomer's wares as instruments of murder. Suddenly Vianne's shop-cum-cafe means that there is somewhere for secrets to be whispered, grievances to be aired, dreams to be tested. But Vianne's plans for an Easter Chocolate Festival divide the whole community in a conflict that escalates into a 'Church not Chocolate' battle. As mouths water in anticipation, can the solemnity of the Church compare with the pagan passion of a chocolate eclair? For the first time here is a novel in which chocolate enjoys its true importance, emerging as a moral issue, as an agent of transformation - as well as a pleasure bordering on obsession. Rich, clever and mischievous, this is a triumphant read.

The film: I first saw this film while visiting my parents. I think my Mom and I watched it no less than ten times. While eating chocolate, of course! Ahhh. Good times. It stars Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp, Judi Dench, and Alfred Molina.



In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash by Jean Shepherd

A beloved, bestselling classic of humorous and nostalgic Americana, reissued in a strikingly designed paperback edition.

Before Garrison Keillor and Spalding Gray there was Jean Shepherd: a master monologist and writer who spun the materials of his all-American childhood into immensely resonant--and utterly hilarious--works of comic art. In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash represents one of the peaks of his achievement, a compound of irony, affection, and perfect detail that speaks across generations.

In God We Trust, Shepherd's wildly witty reunion with his Indiana hometown, disproves the adage "You can never go back." Bending the ear of Flick, his childhood-buddy-turned-bartender, Shepherd recalls passionately his genuine Red Ryder BB gun, confesses adolescent failure in the arms of Junie Jo Prewitt, and relives a story of man against fish that not even Hemingway could rival. From pop art to the World's Fair, Shepherd's subjects speak with a universal irony and are deeply and unabashedly grounded in American Midwestern life, together rendering a wonderfully nostalgic impression of a more innocent era when life was good, fun was clean, and station wagons roamed the earth.

A comic genius who bridged the gap between James Thurber and David Sedaris, Shepherd may have accomplished for Holden, Indiana, what Mark Twain did for Hannibal, Missouri.

The film: A Christmas Story. "You'll shoot your eye out." Poor Ralphie. This is my brother-in-law's fave  Christmas flick. His kids all chipped in to get him a full size leg lamp. It even came in the crate marked FRAGILE ("fraagillie, must be Italian") with the official paperwork...He cried. It was great. The movie stars Peter Billingsly, Melinda Dillon, and Darren McGavin.



The Green Mile by Stephen King

Set in the 1930s at the Cold Mountain Penitentiary's death-row facility, The Green Mile is the riveting and tragic story of John Coffey, a giant, preternaturally gentle inmate condemned to death for the rape and murder of twin nine-year-old girls. It is a story narrated years later by Paul Edgecomb, the ward superintendent compelled to help every prisoner spend his last days peacefully and every man walk the green mile to execution with his humanity intact.

Edgecomb has sent seventy-eight inmates to their date with "old sparky," but he's never encountered one like Coffey -- a man who wants to die, yet has the power to heal. And in this place of ultimate retribution, Edgecomb discovers the terrible truth about Coffey's gift, a truth that challenges his most cherished beliefs -- and ours.
Originally published in 1996 in six self-contained monthly installments, The Green Mile is an astonishingly rich and complex novel that delivers over and over again. Each individual volume became a huge success when first published, and all six were on the New York Times bestseller list simultaneously. Three years later, when Frank Darabont made The Green Mile into an award-winning movie starring Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan, the book returned to the bestseller list -- and stayed there for months.

The film: I mentioned this book last week for John Coffey being one of my favorite literary characters.And Michael Clarke Duncan plays the part to perfection. It also stars Tom Hanks. I must have a thing for Tom Hanks...



The Freedom Writers Diary by Erin Gruwell

Straight from the front line of urban America, the inspiring story of one fiercely determined teacher and her remarkable students.

As an idealistic twenty-three-year-old English teacher at Wilson High School in Long beach, California, Erin Gruwell confronted a room of “unteachable, at-risk” students. One day she intercepted a note with an ugly racial caricature, and angrily declared that this was precisely the sort of thing that led to the Holocaust—only to be met by uncomprehending looks. So she and her students, using the treasured books Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo as their guides, undertook a life-changing, eye-opening, spirit-raising odyssey against intolerance and misunderstanding. They learned to see the parallels in these books to their own lives, recording their thoughts and feelings in diaries and dubbing themselves the “Freedom Writers” in homage to the civil rights activists “The Freedom Riders.”

With funds raised by a “Read-a-thon for Tolerance,” they arranged for Miep Gies, the courageous Dutch woman who sheltered the Frank family, to visit them in California, where she declared that Erin Gruwell’s students were “the real heroes.” Their efforts have paid off spectacularly, both in terms of recognition—appearances on “Prime Time Live” and “All Things Considered,” coverage in People magazine, a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley—and educationally. All 150 Freedom Writers have graduated from high school and are now attending college.

With powerful entries from the students’ own diaries and a narrative text by Erin Gruwell, The Freedom Writers Diary is an uplifting, unforgettable example of how hard work, courage, and the spirit of determination changed the lives of a teacher and her students.

The authors’ proceeds from this book will be donated to The Tolerance Education Foundation, an organization set up to pay for the Freedom Writers’ college tuition. Erin Gruwell is now a visiting professor at California State University, Long Beach, where some of her students are Freedom Writers.

The film:  Stars Hilary Swank, Patrick Dempsey, and Imelda Staunton.



The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Sue Monk Kidd's ravishing debut novel has stolen the hearts of reviewers and readers alike with its strong, assured voice. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the town's fiercest racists, Lily decides they should both escape to Tiburon, South Carolina—a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. There they are taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters who introduce Lily to a mesmerizing world of bees, honey, and the Black Madonna who presides over their household. This is a remarkable story about divine female power and the transforming power of love—a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.

The film: Great movie. It stars Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys and Queen Latifah



The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

The Outsiders is a book that delves deeply into the hearts, minds, and stories of a group that had no voice before S. E. Hinton gave them one. She began writing the book at age 15, spurred on by the disturbing trend she saw growing in her high school towards division between groups. "I was worried and angered by the social situation," Hinton writes. "I saw two groups at the extreme ends of the social scale behaving in an idiotic fashion -- one group was being condemned and one wasn't.... When a friend of mine was beaten up for no other reason than that some people didn't like the way he combed his hair, I took my anger out by writing about it."

Thirty years after it was first published, ...

The film: This amazing movie was directed by the incomparable Francis Ford Coppola. An all-star cast includes C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, Ralph Macchio, Rob Lowe, Patrick Swaze, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, and Leif Garrett.



A River Runs through it and Other Stories by Norman McClean

Maclean writes “in my family, there is no clear line between religion and fly-fishing.” Nor is there a clear line between family and fly-fishing. It is the one activity where brother can connect with brother and father with son. In Maclean’s autobiographical novella, it is the river that makes them realize that life continues and all things are related.

The film: Stars Craig Sheffer, Brad Pitt, and Tom Skerritt. Robert Redford directed.



The Journey of Natty Gann by Ann Matthews

Natty Gann is a twelve year old Depression era girl whose single-parent father leaves her behind in Chicago while he goes to Washington State to look for work in the timber industry. Natty runs away from the guardian she was left with to follow Dad. She befriends and is befriended by a wolf that has been abused in dog fights, hops a freight train west, and is presumed dead when her wallet is found after the train crashes. Dad gets bitter and endangers himself in his new job. Meanwhile Natty has a series of adventures and mis- adventures in various farmhouses, police stations, hobo camps, reform schools, and boxcars.

The film: I chose this one because I vividly remember reading the book when I was twelve.

Sometimes on Sundays, after church, my parents would take us to a movie. At the theater. It was such a treat! Popcorn drenched in butter...Mmmm. Well, it was one of those Sundays, and I had just finished the book so I suggested we go see that one. I learned quickly that nobody likes to have the movie spoiled by the twelve year old sitting next to them, who keeps piping up as to what will happen next. Ugh, I would have had to kick my own ass!

The movie which stars Meredith Salenger, John Cusack, and Ray Wise was fabulously close to the book.



I'm nowhere near done! I haven't mentioned The Help, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Wizard of Oz...But I have to call it quits for now :)Thanks for coming by.
Talk to you soon,
Angela
 
 
 
 

Benjamin Mee Bought a Zoo

You may have seen the movie trailer for We Bought a Zoo that is to hit theaters on December 23rd. I was intrigued to find out more about the Mee family when I saw that it was based on a true story. The movie is directed by Cameron Crowe and features an all-star cast: Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Thomas Haden Church, and Elle Fanning. Here's the trailer in case you haven't had the chance to see it:








Dartmoor Wildlife Park, located in Dartmoor, Devon, England, was opened in 1968 by Ellis Daw on farmland bought by his family in 1948. The park was forced to close to the public on April 23, 2006, and was put up for sale.

What possess a sane person to buy a zoo? Not just a zoo, but a dilapidated zoo requiring massive amounts of money to fix and run? It was by accident that Benjamin Mee went from a career as a journalist writing a DIY column for The Guardian, to running a zoo.

After his father had died, his mother needed to sell the family home for something smaller. But quite the opposite happened. The real estate agent dropped a brochure in the mail describing a 30-acre zoo for sale for almost the same price she was asking for her house for sale. It seemed doable if Ben, Ben's wife and two children, and his brother Duncan moved into the once grand 12-bedroom mansion with her. And the 220 exotic animals already in residence on the property.

So began their adventure. They put in an offer, but it was rejected on the basis that they had no real money to invest or experience of running a zoo. Go figure.

About a year later, the zoo went up for sale again, the stakes were a bit higher this time though. The animals would have to be shot if a buyer wasn't found. And quick.

The owners wanted the sale to happen. The Mee's were the only bidders who wanted to keep the Wildlife Park as a zoo. Ben put all his energy into making the purchase a reality. And just as everything was falling into place, one of Ben's brothers who was the executor of his dad's estate raised a stink, and engaged the family in a legal battle. They were eventually able to buy the zoo, but in his mother's name instead of the limited company they had planned. With their pooled money, they only had about two weeks' running costs.That was August of 2006.

Then tragedy struck the family. Ben's wife, Katherine, was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2004 and was given a grim prognosis of only a year to live. She underwent chemotherapy and was doing well in 2006 when the sale went through. But then her cancer came back with a vengeance and she died within a few weeks. Ben was now a single parent to his son Milo, 6, and daughter, Ella, 4.

The family was faced with dealing with their grief AND refurbishing the darn zoo. They persevered. The zoo reopened to the public in July 2007, renamed Dartmoor Zoological Park. That year, the BBC Two ran a four-part documentary chronicling the zoo's refurb entitled, Ben's Zoo.

The movie is based on the memoir by Benjamin Mee titled, We Bought a Zoo: the amazing story of a young family, a broken down zoo, and the 200 wild animals that change their lives forever that was published by Weinstein Books in 2008.


Here's a fantastic video of an interview Mee did with Book Lounge:







Finally, here's a link to the Dartmoor Zoo website.



Talk to you soon.

Angela

Author Spotlight: Sue Miller

Photo: Debi Milligan

Sue Miller is celebrating her 68th birthday today. She was born on November 29, 1943 in Chicago. At 16, Sue graduated high school and went on to study and earn a degree from Radcliffe College. She fell in love with a med student while she was there, and they were married. In 1968, their son, Ben was born. Since Sue was supporting the family while hubby was in med school, and now there was a baby to take care of, there was no time to write.

In 1970,  they were divorced, and Sue would be a single parent to Ben. She made ends meet by working in a daycare center and renting her place out for extra money.

In 1977 she became very serious about her writing. It paid off, because in 1979 she was awarded a fellowship to Boston University's creative writing program which allowed her to devote a large amount of time to writing.



In 1983, she was awarded the Bunting Fellowship through Radcliffe. Between the fellowship and a grant, Sue was able to write full time. And in 1986, when she was 43, Sue Miller's first novel, The Good Mother, was published. It became a bestseller and was made into a film in 1988.

Her second novel, Inventing the Abbotts was published in 1987 and also made into a film in 1997.

While I Was Gone, published in 1999 became Oprah's Book Club Pick in 2000.

Ms. Miller is now a professor at Smith College in Northampton, MA where she teaches creative writing. 

Novels

The Good Mother (1986)
Family Pictures (1990)
For Love (1993)
The Distinguished Guest (1995)
While I Was Gone (1999)
The World Below (2001)
Lost in the Forest (2005)
The Senator's Wife (2008)
The Lake Shore Limited (2010)

Nonfiction
The Story of My Father (2004)

I'm Nobody's Fool

Have you seen Nobody's Fool, the movie starring Paul Newman and Melanie Griffith? Oh yeah, Paul Newman wrecks Bruce Willis' doberman. "Perfectly good dog. Ruined."  It's one of my favs. My hubby knows it as "the one where Melanie Griffith shows her boobs." Sometimes we get so caught up in our daily  lives, we forget how many lives we touch. I was out of town helping one of my parents after one of their surgeries and hubby had to take care of everything I usually did. I usually took the neighbor to the store on Thursdays because he didn't drive (I'd get a call from hubby "where is the peanut butter he likes?") Hubby was awesome and deposited money into my account when I needed money, and the bankers would ask, How's your wife? When will she be home?" People would ask, "How's Angela?" Hubby called and said, "is there anybody who DOESN'T know you?"

When I realized Nobody's Fool is written by Richard Russo, I bought all of his books. I still have yet to read Nobody's Fool because I like the movie so much.. I HATE reading a book AFTER seeing the movie. But I have the book. 

Would someone let me know how close the book is to the movie please? I don't want to wreck it or be disappointed. 

New Book to Film adaptations

Coming soon (or already out) to a theater near you. You can check out my previous post for more books to film coming out in 2011. 

• Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater
  
  1939 Newbery honor book. Mr. Popper lives a quiet life until his obsession with the arctic earns him the gift of a bunch of penguins. He turns them into a comedy act that is wildly popular but one day releases them into the wild. Quite funny and silly.   

Film: (June 17) Stars Jim Carrey, Carla Guigino, and Angela Lansbury. 

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 by JK Rowling (film out July 15)

• Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours. Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life. Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.

Film: (July 22) Stars Kristin Scott Thomas, Melusine Mayance. and Niels Arestrup

2011 Books to the Big Screen

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte


Charlotte Brontë’s most beloved novel describes the passionate love between the courageous orphan Jane Eyre and the brilliant, brooding, and domineering Rochester. The loneliness and cruelty of Jane’s childhood strengthens her natural independence and spirit, which prove invaluable when she takes a position as a governess at Thornfield Hall. But after she falls in love with her sardonic employer, her discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a heart-wrenching choice. Ever since its publication in 1847, Jane Eyre has enthralled every kind of reader, from the most critical and cultivated to the youngest and most unabashedly romantic. It lives as one of the great triumphs of storytelling and as a moving and unforgettable portrayal of a woman's quest for self-respect. Free Kindle edition.

Film: (March 11) Director Cary Fukunaga. Stars Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell, Judi Dench, and Holliday Grainger. Available on video.

Desert Flower by Waris Dirie; Cathleen Miller


Waris Dirie ran away from her oppressive life in the African desert when she was barely in her teens, illiterate and impoverished, with nothing to her name but a tattered shawl. She traveled alone across the dangerous Somali desert to Mogadishu—the first leg of a remarkable journey that would take her to London, where she worked as a house servant; then to nearly every corner of the globe as an internationally renowned fashion model; and ultimately to New York City, where she became a human rights ambassador for the U.N. Desert Flower is her extraordinary story.

Film: (March 18) Directed by Sherry Horman. Stars Liya Kebede, Sally Hawkins, and Craig Parkinson. Trailer and more at the official movie site.

The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly


They're called Lincoln Lawyers: the bottom of the legal food chain, the criminal defence attorneys who operate out of the back of a Lincoln car, travelling between the courthouses of Los Angeles county to take whatever cases the system throws in their path. Mickey Haller has been in the business a long time, and he knows just how to work it, how to grease the right wheels and palms, to keep the engine of justice working in his favour. When a Beverly Hills rich boy is arrested for brutally beating a woman, Haller has his first high-paying client in years. The evidence mounts on the defence's side, and he is sure this is going to be a slam-dunk. He might even be in the rare position of defending a client who is actually innocent. But as Haller knows, criminal cases can turn on a dime; when his case starts to fall apart and neither the suspect nor the victim are quite who they seem, Haller quickly discovers that when you swim with the sharks, it's easy to wind up as prey.

Film: (March 18) Stars Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei, and Ryan Phillippe.

Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen 


This is a great, glorious, big-hearted novel set in a travelling circus touring the backblocks of America during the Great Depression of the early 1930s. It's a story of love and hate, trains and circuses, dwarves and fat ladies, horses and elephants - or to be more specific, one elephant, Rosie, star of Benzini Bros Most Spectacular Show on Earth ...When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, swindlers and misfits in a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression. A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It is there that Jacob meets Marlena, the beautiful equestrienne who is married to August, a charismatic but violently unpredictable animal trainer. Jacob also meets Rosie, an elephant who seems unmanageable until he discovers an unusual way to reach her. Water for Elephants is a story that has it all - warmth, humour, poignancy and passion. It has an energy and spirit like the feeling under a big top when the show is about to begin.

You can read my related post here.

Film: (April 22) Stars Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson

Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin


Rachel White is the consummate good girl. A hard-working attorney at a large Manhattan law firm and a diligent maid of honor to her charmed best friend Darcy, Rachel has always played by all the rules. Since grade school, she has watched Darcy shine, quietly accepting the sidekick role in their lopsided friendship. But that suddenly changes the night of her thirtieth birthday when Rachel finally confesses her feelings to Darcy's fiance, and is both horrified and thrilled to discover that he feels the same way. As the wedding date draws near, events spiral out of control, and Rachel knows she must make a choice between her heart and conscience. In so doing, she discovers that the lines between right and wrong can be blurry, endings aren't always neat, and sometimes you have to risk everything to be true to yourself.
You can read my related post here.

Film: (May 6) Stars Ginnifer Goodwin, John Krasinski, and Kate Hudson

One Day by David Nicholls


It’s 1988 and Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have only just met. But after only one day together, they cannot stop thinking about one another. Over twenty years, snapshots of that relationship are revealed on the same day—July 15th—of each year. Dex and Em face squabbles and fights, hopes and missed opportunities, laughter and tears. And as the true meaning of this one crucial day is revealed, they must come to grips with the nature of love and life itself.  
Film: (July 8) Stars Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. Directed by Lone Sherfig

The Help by Kathryn Stockett


Be prepared to meet three unforgettable women:
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.
Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.
Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.
In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women-mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends-view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.
Film: (August) Stars a cast full of strong women: Viola Davis, Sissy Spacek, Emma Stone, Allison Janney, Cicely Tyson, and Octavia Spencer.

Moneyball by Michael Lewis


The Oakland Athletics have a secret: a winning baseball team is made, not bought.In major league baseball the biggest wallet is supposed to win: rich teams spend four times as much on talent as poor teams. But over the past four years, the Oakland Athletics, a major league team with a minor league payroll, have had one of the best records. Last year their superstar, Jason Giambi, went to the superrich Yankees. It hasn't made any difference to Oakland: their fabulous season included an American League record for consecutive victories. Billy Beane, general manager of the Athletics, is putting into practice on the field revolutionary principles garnered from geek statisticians and college professors. Michael Lewis's brilliant, irreverent reporting takes us from the dugouts and locker rooms-where coaches and players struggle to unlearn most of what they know about pitching and hitting-to the boardrooms, where we meet owners who begin to look like fools at the poker table, spending enormous sums without a clue what they are doing. Combine money, science, entertainment, and egos, and you have a story that Michael Lewis is magnificently suited to tell.

Journalist Michael Lewis also wrote the bestsellers: The Blind Side, Liar's Poker, and The Big Short.

Film: (Sept. 23) Stars Brad Pitt, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright, and Jonah Hill. Directed by Bennett Miller of Capote.

Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin


In one of the most gripping financial narratives in decades, Andrew Ross Sorkin-a New York Times columnist and one of the country's most respected financial reporters-delivers the first definitive blow- by-blow account of the epochal economic crisis that brought the world to the brink. Through unprecedented access to the players involved, he re-creates all the drama and turmoil of these turbulent days, revealing never-before-disclosed details and recounting how, motivated as often by ego and greed as by fear and self-preservation, the most powerful men and women in finance and politics decided the fate of the world's economy.

Film: Now airing. HBO movie starring Cynthia Nixon, James Woods, Paul Giamatti, William Hurt, Matthew Modine, Tony Shalhoub, and Billy Crudup.

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver


The gripping international bestseller about motherhood gone awry.
Eva never really wanted to be a mother—and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his sixteenth birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin's horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklyn. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails.
Film: (Fall) Stars Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller. Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood is scoring the film.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson


Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.
Film: (Dec. 21) The Hollywood version is directed by David Fincher and stars Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara.

Original Swedish versions of the trilogy star Noomi Rapace, which I've read are wonderful: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

I'd love to hear what your favorite book-to-movie adaptations are. 

Happy reading,

Angela