Becky

A dizzying number of books have inspired movies over the years. Bibliophiles usually agree that books are better than their movie adaptions because a film strip holds a finite amount of information, but the human imagination is infinite.  However, in honor of Ashland's 11th annual Independent Film Festival, we would like to share a few books we love that have movie counterparts.

Breakfast at Tiffany's, by Truman Capote, is both a classic short novel and iconic film. The movie is a product of a Hollywood on the brink of a new decade, teetering between the figurative black and white of the 1950s and the Technicolor of the 1960s. Complete with the gamine Audrey Hepburn, swathed in cigarette smoke and pearls, the film reinvisions a story written by a broken but brilliant man. Despite numerous differences, the wild nature of Holly Go-Lightly has the same flavor off the page and on the screen. In addition to Capote's short novel, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. by Sam Wasson engagingly chronicles the transformation from Capopte's less-than-romantic ending to Audrey and George Peppard embracing in the rain. 

The Invisible Circus, by Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan, is an ambitiously written novel about the reedemptive power of love and family. Moving across space (from San Fransisco to Europe), and back in time (from 1978 to the late 1960s), Egan's story follows eighteen-year-old Phoebe as she searches for the truth behind her sister's mysterious suicide a decade before. Released in 1999, the movie is a well done adaption, starring a young Jordana Brewster, a still relatively-unknown Christopher Eccelston and features Cameron Diaz.

Uncluttered sentences and unpretentious langauge makes Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen (aka Karen Blixen), an evocative and thoughtful read more than half a century after the initial publication. The memoir of running a coffee plantation, a dissentigrated marriage, British-influenced East Africa, and the native cultures of Kenya, Dinesen's story is touching and luminous. The movie, made in 1985, starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, is a romantascized, Hollywood version of the book, but Meryl is always worth watching!

 

Karen

In The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, Aibileen is a black maid in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, who's always taken orders quietly. But lately she's unable to hold her bitterness back. Her friend Minny has never held her tongue but now must somehow keep secrets about her employer that leave her speechless. White socialite Skeeter just graduated college. She's full of ambition, but without a husband, she's considered a failure. Together, these seemingly different women join together to write a tell-all book about work as a black maid in the South, that could forever alter their destinies and the life of a small town.

 

Anita

If you loved the movie, you'll really love the book. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, is clever, funny, scary and totally delectable.  And, as is often the case, quite a bit different than the movie – much richer in detail and nuance.  After reading this book with my children, we immediately when on to read the enitre OZ series (yes there are approximately fifteen books in the series!)  L. Frank Baum was truly a wizard.

 

Marilyn

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. A classic book way before we ever considered Civil Rights. Gregory Peck was the quintessential Atticus Finch, just as Clark Gable will always be Rhett Butler.  Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell, is another super favorite of mine.

I sat on the floor in a two-hour line to get tickets to see The Color Purple. I also devoured the book, by Alice Walker. I was  appalled that Steven Spielberg was overlooked at the Academy Awards.

Rebecca

The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. Both the film and novel leave one breathless with Atwood's chilling dystopian vision. The movie and the book explore this with a vivid terseness that allows the audience to delve into the depths of their own imagination.

Written in 1985 and made into a film in 1990, The Handmaid's Tale is prophetic of the current craze for futuristic dystopian movies and novels, such as The Hunger Games phenomenon. In her novel, Atwood strikes a nerve that is both intimately shocking and de-humanized. In the movie, Robert Duvall's role as  "The Commander Fred" is a perfect portrayal - indelible and subtlely terrifying.

Atwood deals with the timeless struggle between a totalitarian society born of power and desperation; and matters of human nature and the heart. In this regard, like Cormac McCarthy's, The Road, one feels a fragile undercurrent of hope. Of all the books and moviesI have had the pleasure to compare and contrast, I feel this one is the most well-matched, each one mirroring the other with insight, integrity, and stirring clarity.

 

The end of winter has been reluctant to leave and, however much we long to be out in the sun, the weather that confines us offers the opportunity to escape with some exceptionally good new fiction. These novels are inspiring, fun and transformative. They are a magnificent indulgence.

 

In WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT ANNE FRANK, Nathan Englander claims company with the best of contemporary writers.  His collection of provocative stories about the condition of the American and the Israeli Jew is comic, dark, and haunting.  He is absolutely unique and brave as he writes of the moral ambiguities of modern life.  Truly, this is one of the best and most important books of the year. Order here

 

THE SONG OF ACHILLES is a retelling of the life of Achilles by Madeline Miller, a scholar of the Iliad and a very talented new novelist. Miller stated that she had not thought that the Iliad had a love story until she searched the ancient texts for every mention of Achilles and his beloved companion, Patroclus. Their story, narrated by Patroclus, is at the heart of this wonderfully imaginative novel that transports us back to a time when gods amused themselves with the deeds of men and women and centaurs and sea nymphs, heroes and giants peopled the earth. Magic and myth were reality. Order here

 

If your ideal escape demands suspense, THE POISON TREE by Erin Kelly (now out in paperback), is a great psychological thriller. Stephen King writes the cover blurb, comparing Kelly to Daphne du Maurier. He's right; like REBECCA, it's a brooding, atmospheric tale of a rather naive young woman who becomes obsessed by an amoral, beautiful woman. But it also reminded me of Donna Tartt's THE SECRET HISTORY. It's compulsively readable to the last shocking page. Order here

 

It's not out until later this spring, but keep THE AGE OF MIRACLES by new novelist, Karen Thompson Walker, on your radar (or pre-order from Bloomsbury). This is the coming-of-age story of an eleven-year-old California girl who wakes up  one morning to find that something has happened to the rotation of the sun. It has begun to slow. She navigates the thresholds of stepping from innocence to maturity as the days get longer, and longer. In less than a year, the world is forty-eight hours of sunlight, then darkness, and the periods between night and day continue to lengthen. The juxtaposition of the personal changes of adolescence with the monumental consequences of a shift, that some scientist say could happen, makes a compelling read. Like TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, this has great appeal for adults and adolescents. Pre-order here

 

THE EXPATS by Chris Pavone wins my vote as best airplane book of the season. It is a great spy-thriller with a memorable heroine, who hoped that moving to Luxembourg with her young children and husband (who is unaware that she has been a CIA spy), would erase her violent past. It's really fun, and just amazing that it's a first novel. Pavone has drawn from Graham Greene, Le Carre and the best of Ludlum. It's a well-written roller coaster ride and, of course, the movie is in the works. Order here

 

HISTORY OF A PLEASURE SEEKER by Richard Mason is a gorgeous, romantic and very sexy novel, set at the height of Europe's belle epoque, about a handsome young man who secures a position as a tutor in the household a a very wealthy and prominent family in Amsterdam. How his life is transformed and how he transforms the lives of the members of the household is reminiscent of BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, DOWNTON ABBEY and Edith Wharton. And did I mention, it's very sexy? Order here

Find Becky's insightful and entertaining commentaries at
Bloomsbury's new blog
Titles include:

 

THE MARRIAGE PLOT

Recently, Pulitzer Prize winner Jeffery Eugendies' third novel, The Marriage Plot, transported me to Regean-era America, where three Ivy League undergraduates are faced with the impending future; life after graduation.

A fan of Eugenides since The Virgin Suicides and a devotee of Middlesex, I almost expected to be disappointed, but this re-imagined love story is poignant, pertinent and far-reaching...read more...

 

DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY

A fresh voice reanimates two literary-couples I adore and transports me to Pemberley, an English country estate held close in my heart. Surrounded by  delicate female conventions and gallant gentleman, I dine with old friends, bask in burgeoning true-love and witness a murder trial, while becoming acquainted with a wonderful, prolific author, P.D. James...read more..

 

THE CASE FOR BOOKS

Robert Darnton's book, The Case for Books, is a cohesive, well-articulated collection of essays arguing that books are far from becoming extinct; the traditional codex will out live the e-book; libraries will survive past Google and that many inherent joys of reading cannot be digitized...read more...

 

ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE

I discovered Animal, Vegetable, Miracle a few years ago during a typical college weekend. Taking a needed study respite, I poked around Bloomsbury Book (before I was lucky enough to work there) hunting through rows of paper treasures. I drifted to the non-fiction section, smiling as I brushed passed familiar titles, and paused to explore pages of new finds. One such discovery was a work by Barbara Kingsolver...read more...

 

THIS ORGANIC LIFE

Joan Dye-Gussow’s journeys described in This Organic Life, and Growing Older are soothing companions during grief, which illustrate how living close to the earth and laughing maintain a connection to those who have passed on...read more...