Non-Fiction Fun

Thanks, Tiff, for your posts about the Hurricane and Northern Lights. It saddens me that I don't have time for pleasure reading, and I am looking forward to tackling the growing stack of books on might night table when I am off from school in January.

I'm really enjoying being back in school, and while the first half of the semester included some not so fun books (all 85 of the Federalist Papers, for example), I am really enjoying the books assigned in the second half of my Intro to Public Affairs course.

I've read most of What You Should Know about Politics...But Don't by Jessamyn Conrad. Though not the most sophisticated book (I like to think that Conrad, who is getting her PhD in Art History, wrote this book as a guide to politics for art history majors), it explains all sorts of political issues very well--and to her credit, Conrad does explain the many sides of political issues. The book is not entirely non-partisan, as it claims to be, but it does provide a well-rounded view of what is going on in American political life.

On the "I didn't know America had a eugenics program" front, I am currently about a third of the way through of War Against the Weak by Edwin Black. So far, it is incredibly fascinating. I had no idea that Germany learned about eugenics from the US! And with all of the debate over "human engineering" (did anyone see this week's Private Practice), the books feels incredibly relevant. I'll post more when I am done, but if you enjoy history, this is a good one.

The 16th Round by Rubin "Hurricane" Carter

We were supposed to read this book as the first in our "novel to film" round, but as luck would have it (or rather, lack of luck), none of us could get our hands on a copy in time, so we moved on to the next book on the list. I was still interested in reading this book, however, so I kept it on my library queue and read it after I was done with the bookclub book of the month.

I had seen the film with Denzel Washington, so I was vaguely familiar with Carter's story, but after now having read the novel, I see that the film definitely left out a lot of the events of his life in order to make a more sympathetic character out of Carter. You don't see Denzel Washington mugging people (or at least that I can remember...I'm going to netflix it so that I can refresh my memory...)

Considering that the novel is a memoir more than a biography, I couldn't help but question some of the things that Carter tells us. I'm not saying that I don't believe Carter's story to a certain extent because I know that racism plays an big part in the relations between many different ethnicities, but it seems that every time something happens to him, he blames it on the prejudice of others. He never seems to take responsibility for his own behavior (which includes mugging and robbing people) and instead tries to justify his actions by constantly reminding you of the circumstances of what most, if not all, Black people during that time were going through. Not everyone made the same choices that he did.

As for the murders that he was given the life sentences for, I believe him when he says that he didn't commit those crimes, if only because his life seemed to be going in a completely different direction than most of his life was heading and he seems to be on the right path. Married with a child on the way, a career that was flourishing...he'd have had to be an idiot to mess that up.

I found the novel to be an interesting read (especially since my dad grew up in Paterson and my grandmother still lives there...I was even able to picture some of the places that Carter mentions) and I was definitely intrigued by Carter, but I don't think that I ever allowed myself to truly open up to Carter. Perhaps that was because I never felt like he was able to truly open up to us...his audience.

Has anyone else read this novel? What were your thoughts? Do you think that Carter was able to give an objective view of his own life?

Northern Lights - Novel to Film #1

As the first book of our new round, we read Northern Lights by Nora Roberts. Personally, I was really interested to read the book because of all of the drama surrounding the stars of the made for tv film. I'm not proud of it, but it's the truth. Hehe.

I was pleasantly surprised that this was more than just a typical romance novel. True, it did have the sweeping, unrealistic (at least to me) love story, but what kept me turning the page was the murder mystery storyline that was woven in. I found myself really paying attention to the clues and trying to figure out who the killer was before the story revealed it. Of course, that didn't happen, but that's the point. The author let us know the answers when she decided it was time.

Beyond the love story with the murder mystery subplot, the core of the story, I found, was the internal struggle of Nate. He was a tortured soul who came to the town to escape his demons and he ends up going through a complete transformation. It was almost as if he was SUPPOSED to be in Lunacy at that exact time period so that not only he could experience the transformation, but so could other people in the town. I thought that he was the most interesting character of the book and the only one who could think with a clear head at all times. It was almost like he was the perfect man, except for the fact that you know that he's not. He's flawed, but he rises to the challenge of life and it was great to have someone like that to read about.

I haven't seen the film, but I just got it from work today (had no idea that we had the DVD rights to it! hehe) and so I'll definitely be sitting down to watch it soon. Not sure that I buy Leann Rhimes as Meg, but we'll see what happens...Eddie Cibrian as Nate almost works for me (he's very handsome), but I imagined Nate as a little older.

Who was your favorite character from the book? Any other thoughts on the book? Any thoughts on the film vs novel?

365 Days of Book Reading

Read a great story this morning from the New York Times about a suburban Connecticut mom who has spent the past year reading a book a day and blogging about her experience. I'm quite inspired!

Here's a snippet of the article:

Last Oct. 28, on her 46th birthday, Nina Sankovitch read a novel, “The Elegance of the Hedgehog,” by Muriel Barbery. The next day she posted a review online deeming it “beautiful, moving and occasionally very funny.”

The next day she read “The Emigrants,” by W. G. Sebald, and the day after that, “A Sun for the Dying,” by Jean-Claude Izzo. On Thanksgiving she read Peter Ackroyd’s biography of Isaac Newton; on Christmas, “The Love Song of Monkey,” by Michael S. A. Graziano; on July 4, “Dreamers,” by Knut Hamsun. When seen Friday, she was working on “How to Paint a Dead Man,” by Sarah Hall. She finished two more over the weekend during a trip to Rochester with her family (husband; 27-year-old stepdaughter; four boys ages 16, 14, 11 and 8) for her in-laws’ 60th wedding anniversary.In a time-deprived world, where book reading is increasingly squeezed off the page, it is hard to know what’s most striking about Ms. Sankovitch’s quest, now on Day 350, to read a book every day for a year and review them on her blog, www.readallday.org.

Read more here:

Good Girls Should Go Bad?

Read about this new book by author Rachel Simmons, The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

"Our culture is teaching girls to embrace a version of selfhood that sharply curtails their power and potential. In particular, the pressure to be “Good”—unerringly nice, polite, modest, and selfless—diminishes girls’ authenticity and personal authority.

The Curse of the Good Girl erects a psychological glass ceiling that begins its destructive sprawl in girlhood and extends across the female life span, stunting the growth of skills and habits essential to becoming a strong woman. This book traces the impact of the curse on girls’ development, and provides parents with the strategies to break its spell."

New Books from Book Club Authors - Part 3

In October comes The Museum of Love, the latest novel from Orhan Pamuk (My Name is Red). I recently read an excerpt of it in the New Yorker magazine (which you can find online: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/09/07/090907fi_fiction_pamuk) and was mesmerized by it. It’s quite a departure from My Name is Red and seems to tell a modern story about love and marriage.

From Amazon:
It was the happiest moment of my life, though I didn’t know it.” So begins the new novel, his first since winning the Nobel Prize, from the universally acclaimed author of Snow and My Name Is Red.It is 1975, a perfect spring in Istanbul. Kemal, scion of one of the city’s wealthiest families, is about to become engaged to Sibel, daughter of another prominent family, when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl and a distant relation. Once the long-lost cousins violate the code of virginity, a rift begins to open between Kemal and the world of the Westernized Istanbul bourgeosie—a world, as he lovingly describes it, with opulent parties and clubs, society gossip, restaurant rituals, picnics, and mansions on the Bosphorus, infused with the melancholy of decay—until finally he breaks off his engagement to Sibel. But his resolve comes too late.

For eight years Kemal will find excuses to visit another Istanbul, that of the impoverished backstreets where Füsun, her heart now hardened, lives with her parents, and where Kemal discovers the consolations of middle-class life at a dinner table in front of the television. His obsessive love will also take him to the demimonde of Istanbul film circles (where he promises to make Füsun a star), a scene of seedy bars, run-down cheap hotels, and small men with big dreams doomed to bitter failure.In his feckless pursuit, Kemal becomes a compulsive collector of objects that chronicle his lovelorn progress and his afflicted heart’s reactions: anger and impatience, remorse and humiliation, deluded hopes of recovery, and daydreams that transform Istanbul into a cityscape of signs and specters of his beloved, from whom now he can extract only meaningful glances and stolen kisses in cars, movie houses, and shadowy corners of parks. A last change to realize his dream will come to an awful end before Kemal discovers that all he finally can possess, certainly and eternally, is the museum he has created of his collection, this map of a society’s manners and mores, and of one man’s broken heart.

A stirring exploration of the nature of romantic attachment and of the mysterious allure of collecting, The Museum of Innocence also plumbs the depths of an Istanbul half Western and half traditional—its emergent modernity, its vast cultural history. This is Orhan Pamuk’s greatest achievement.

New Books from Book Club Authors - Part 2

Also being published in September is Kazu Ishiguro’s (Never Let Me Go) new book, a collection of short stories, entitled Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall. “Music and nightfall” sounds so sumptious...I'm eager to dip into this book.

Here’s a short description:
One of the most celebrated writers of our time gives us his first cycle of short fiction: five brilliantly etched, interconnected stories in which music is a vivid and essential character.A once-popular singer, desperate to make a comeback, turning from the one certainty in his life . . . A man whose unerring taste in music is the only thing his closest friends value in him . . . A struggling singer-songwriter unwittingly involved in the failing marriage of a couple he’s only just met . . . A gifted, underappreciated jazz musician who lets himself believe that plastic surgery will help his career . . . A young cellist whose tutor promises to “unwrap” his talent . . .Passion or necessity—or the often uneasy combination of the two—determines the place of music in each of these lives. And, in one way or another, music delivers each of them to a moment of reckoning: sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, sometimes just eluding their grasp.An exploration of love, need, and the ineluctable force of the past, Nocturnes reveals these individuals to us with extraordinary precision and subtlety, and with the arresting psychological and emotional detail that has marked all of Kazuo Ishiguro’s acclaimed works of fiction.

New Books from Book Club Authors - Part 1

I’m excited by three books that will be released in the next couple months by authors we’ve read in the club: Margret Atwood, Kazu Ishiguro and Orhan Pamuk. I have been hearing great things about their news books and can’t wait to pick them up!

Margret Atwood (The Blind Assassin) has written another dystopia novel, The Year of the Flood, which will be published in September.

Here’s the description from Amazon:
The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power.
The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners--a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life--has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.

Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers...
Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away...By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.

"Stitches" A Graphic Memoir

Just read this article in the New York Times, about a new graphic memoir by a popular children's book illustrator. Subject matter is for adults. Sounds pretty interesting, if any of you find and or read it back in NYC, let me know what you think!

"Stitches" by David Small


"Finding a Voic in a Graphic Memoir"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/books/07small.html?_r=1

Summer Reading!

So I've had THE CRIMSON PETAL AND THE WHITE sitting on my bookshelf for a full 2 years and this summer I decided that I had to read it once and for all. I had heard so many great things about it (hence why I bought it in the first place), but the thought of reading over 800 pages really bogged me down and I knew that unless I had a good chunk of time to read it, it wasn't going to happen. Then of course, we decided to take an extended break from the bookclub and the opportunity presented itself.

I have to say, I am SO happy that I read this novel! It was such an interesting story and the historical period it was set in (Victorian England) just added another layer of intrigue to the novel as a whole. The lead character, Sugar, is a prostitute who lives in a brothel managed by her own mother. She's an extremely smart girl but opportunities had never presented themselves to her until one day she meets an unusual client and her entire world is turned upside down. I won't say any more since I hope that my raving will propel at least one of you to read it...

Can't wait to see you all at the next bookclub meeting!

Happy reading!

Tiff

Peter Hessler's River Town

So while traveling around China for a month, I had a lot of time to read on the 14 hour train rides between cities. I finished off Peter Hessler's River Town. He was a Peace Corps volunteer back in the late 1990s, the first batch sent to China, where he taught English at a small sleepy town along the Yangtze River.

If there is one book I would recommend to summarize many of my own experiences and feelings about China, it would be this book. I really hope you all get a chance to read it. It's entertaining and insightful about being a foreigner in China, Chinese history and culture, and the growing pains and successes of the nation and its people in modern times.

Happy summer reading!

Summer Reading

I've read some great novels thus far this spring/summer (aren't these the best times of year for reading?) and wanted to share them with you.


The Housekeeper and the Professor
Short and compact, funny and heartwarming. Set in Japan, the story is about a brilliant mathematician with short-term memory loss (he can only remember things for precisely 80 minutes) and the relationship he develops with his housekeeper and her ten year old son.

Synopsis: He is a brilliant math Professor with a peculiar problem--ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory.

She is an astute young Housekeeper, with a ten-year-old son, who is hired to care for him. And every morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship blossoms between them. Though he cannot hold memories for long (his brain is like a tape that begins to erase itself every eighty minutes), the Professors mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. And the numbers, in all of their articulate order, reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her young son. The Professor is capable of discovering connections between the simplest of quantities--like the Housekeepers shoe size--and the universe at large, drawing their lives ever closer and more profoundly together, even as his memory slips away.

The Housekeeper and the Professor is an enchanting story about what it means to live in the present, and about the curious equations that can create a family.


Hurry Down Sunshine
A New York City based writer chronicles the summer when his fifteen year old daughter is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Though the topic is quite dark, I found it riveting and couldn’t put it down. The writer presents a fascinating account of his daughter’s spiral into psychosis and the underground world of mental health clinics.

Synopsis: Hurry Down Sunshine tells the story of the extraordinary summer when, at the age of fifteen, Michael Greenberg's daughter was struck mad. It begins with Sally's visionary crack-up on the streets of Greenwich Village, and continues, among other places, in the out-of-time world of a Manhattan psychiatric ward during the city's most sweltering months. "I feel like I'm traveling and traveling with nowhere to go back to," Sally says in a burst of lucidity while hurtling away toward some place her father could not dream of or imagine.

Hurry Down Sunshine is the chronicle of that journey, and its effect on Sally and those closest to her — her brother and grandmother, her mother and stepmother, and, not least of all, the author himself. Among Greenberg's unforgettable gallery of characters are an unconventional psychiatrist, an Orthodox Jewish patient, a manic Classics professor, a movie producer, and a landlord with literary dreams. Unsentimental, nuanced, and deeply humane, Hurry Down Sunshin e holds the reader in a mesmerizing state of suspension between the mundane and the transcendent.

American Rust

Another book I couldn’t put down. Two teenage boys, best friends, from Pittsburg who find themselves caught up in a murder. The boys are talented, one excels in academics, the other in sports, but both choose not to go to college and end up wallowing in their desolate, poverty-stricken town. The novel unfolds like a film with an interesting mix of characters and strong dialogue. I wouldn’t be surprise if the novel is made to a movie one day.

Synopsis: Set in a beautiful but economically devastated Pennsylvania steel town, a lush landscape as deceptively promising as the edifices of the abandoned steel mills that once provided the livelihood of generations, American Rust is a novel of the lost American dream and the desperation that arises from its loss. From local bars to train yards to prison, it is the story of two young men bound to the town by family, responsibility, inertia, and the beauty around them, who dream of a future beyond the factories, abandoned homes, and polluted river. Evoking John Steinbeck's novels of restless lives during the Great Depression, American Rust takes us into the contemporary American heartland at a moment of profound unrest and uncertainty about the future. It is a dark but lucid vision, a moving novel about the bleak realities that battle our desire for transcendence, and the power of love and friendship to redeem us.



The Corrections

I remember trying to tackle this book when it first came out in 2001 and disliking it. The writing seemed too clever and over-blown, and I ended up abandoning it after the first chapter. Recently, I gave it another shot, and it went down much better the second time. The novel is very funny and very scathing. It is about a Midwestern family who hate each other and who are forced together one Christmas when the father falls ill with Parkinson’s. The writer, Jonathan Franzen, has a brilliant way of describing the ways that families get under our skin.

Synopsis: If some authors are masters of suspense, others postmodern verbal acrobats, and still others complex-character pointillists, few excel in all three arenas. In his long-awaited third novel, Franzen does. Unlike his previous works, The 27th City (1988) and Strong Motion (1992), which tackled St. Louis and Boston, respectively, this one skips from city to city (New York; St. Jude; Philadelphia; Vilnius, Lithuania) as it follows the delamination of the Lambert family Alfred, once a rigid disciplinarian, flounders against Parkinson's-induced dementia; Enid, his loyal and embittered wife, lusts for the perfect Midwestern Christmas; Denise, their daughter, launches the hippest restaurant in Philly; and Gary, their oldest son, grapples with depression, while Chip, his brother, attempts to shore his eroding self-confidence by joining forces with a self-mocking, Eastern-Bloc politician. As in his other novels, Franzen blends these personal dramas with expert technical cartwheels and savage commentary on larger social issues, such as the imbecility of laissez-faire parenting and the farcical nature of U.S.-Third World relations. The result is a book made of equal parts fury and humor, one that takes a dry-eyed look at our culture, at our pains and insecurities, while offering hope that, occasionally at least, we can reach some kind of understanding. This is, simply, a masterpiece.

Do you have any summer reading picks? (Books that you already read and enjoyed or plan to read?)

Favorite Book to Film Adaptations

Hi Girls! So it's been forever, and I'm really sorry I've been behind on the reading. Unfortunately, many of the titles we picked just are not readily available over here in HK....I will have lots of reading to catch up on!

In reading some of the old posts about films and books- Never Let Me Go being turned into a movie, The Last Lecture going from video to book, etc. I was thinking about my favorite book-to-film adaptations. I'm usually in "the book is better than the movie" camp. But there are a few I think that do a great job in respects of 1) staying true to the story 2) enhancing visually the written descriptions and actions 3) being entertaining 4) I still love the book, and the movie.

What film adaptations do you girls like best? The least? Why?
Of the books we've read together, which one would you like to see turned into a film? What actors and actresses would you cast?

Jenn's Favorites:

1. The Hours: novel by Michael Cunningham. Yes, I read this for NYU Freshman Colloquium. But when I heard that they were making it into a movie, I was really skeptical they could pull it off. But they did, and somehow I think the film works as well as the book.

2. Babe: novel by Dick King-Smith OK, I know it's a children's book and film, but I read the book when I was young, and the movie is just delightful. They didn't ruin it, and that's a big thing for a little girl : )

3. The Color Purple: novel by Alice Walker I remember I read this book in one day, while I was sick in Vietnam with the Tisch scholars, who were out and about enjoying Halong Bay. It kept me company and took my mind off my stomach pains. I also really like the movie.

4. Persepolis: graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi I think the animation in the film is beautiful, and maybe because Marjane had a hand in both the book and the film, I think the movie stays true to the emotional content and touching humor in the graphic novel.

Of the books we've read, I'd like to see The Blind Assasin turned into a film. It would be a rather difficult piece to adapt, but I'd love to see what it would look like visually. Actresses: maybe Michelle Williams as Iris? As for Laura...hmmm

The Last Lecture

Hey Ladies!  Sorry I couldn't make it to the meeting, but I hope you all had a great time discussing the book.  Here are some of my thoughts...

I had seen the video of Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture" online last year and was completely blown away by it.  It was funny, insightful, enduring, thought-provoking, just all of the things that I'm sure he was hoping his audience would take from it.  So when it was decided that we would read the book, I thought it would just be a repeat of the recorded lecture.  I was pleasantly surprised when I began reading the book and found that it gave much more insight than even the video. There was reflection there that couldn't be captured in such a short presentation time.  

It's terrible to say, but I agree with him when he says that he was lucky to have gotten cancer. 

Not to say that he was lucky to be dying from a terrible disease, but he was able to live long enough to leave his kids with videos and letters and a true sense of how much he loved them. Had he been hit by a bus or something, they would have only been able to rely on what others said about him, not first hand information.  I think that's the most heart-breaking thing about the entire book.  Here he is giving advice to the masses, but really it's him giving advice to his kids.  He loved them so much that he wanted to give all that he could while he could.  I couldn't help but cry at the end when he reveals to his audience that he's doing all of this for his kids.  

Reading this book really makes you take a hard look at your own life and how you should be grateful for every moment you have.  Not only that, but you should always follow your dreams and not be discouraged if at first you don't succeed.  He talks about the fundamentals that everyone should know, but that we tend to forget or set aside for other things as we get older. 

What did everyone else take away from this book?  Was there a particular story or anecdote that hit a nerve with anyone?  Any other thoughts on the book?

The Lost Boys of Sudan

Last year, I read What is the What by Dave Eggers, which tells the story of the Lost Boys of Sudan. Eggers tells the amazing story of Valentino Achak Deng who traveled from Sudan to Ethiopia to Kenya and finally to the U.S. (Georgia) to escape the civil war in his homeland. The Eggers' version of the story is technically fiction, but it is based on fact and provides a pretty good picture of the struggles of Deng and the other Lost Boys. (To learn more about the Lost Boys who are known for walking thousands of miles to leave Sudan click here.)

Several months ago, I added a documentary about the Lost Boys to my netflix queue--inspired by Deng's story, and yesterday, I watched God Grew Tired of Us. Like What is the What, the film told the story of the Lost Boys through the experience of a few individuals. Like Deng, the subjects of the film fled Sudan for Ethiopia, then Kenya and finally the U.S. (Pittsburgh and Syracuse). The film brought to life the struggles and inspiration I had read about in What is the What. It is also fascinating to learn how John, Daniel and Panther, who are followed on their journey from Kenya to the U.S., adapt (rather quickly) to their new lives.

By the way, I also learned that there is another documentary out now about the Lost Boys--appropriately called Lost Boys of Sudan.

Book to Film Adaptation

I’m a fan of the novelist Salman Rushdie, who wrote the wonderfully mystical Midnight’s Children. Last month, he wrote an essay for the British newspaper, the Guardian, about the difficulty of adapting novels for the big screen.

Mr. Rushdie analyzes a few of this year’s Oscar nominated films, focusing particularly on Slumdog Millionaire. He disliked that movie and most of the others and argues why it is often so hard to make good films from books. I found the article interesting and thought I’d share. Think it’d be great to have a book-to -film round for our book club at some point. I envision it’d foster a lot of great discussion.

Here’s the beginning of the essay. Click the link below to read the rest.

Adaptation, the process by which one thing develops into another thing, by which one shape or form changes into a different form, is a commonplace artistic activity. Books are turned into plays and films all the time, plays are turned into movies and also sometimes into musicals, movies are turned into Broadway shows and even, by the ugly method known as "novelisation", into books as well. We live in a world of such transformations and metamorphoses. Good movies - Lolita, The Pink Panther - are remade as bad movies; bad movies - The Incredible Hulk, Deep Throat - are remade as even worse movies; British TV comedy series are turned into American TV comedy series, so that The Office becomes a different The Office, and Ricky Gervais turns into Steve Carell, just as, long ago, the British working-class racist Alf Garnett in Till Death Us Do Part turned into the American blue-collar bigot Archie Bunker in All In the Family. British reality programmes are adapted to suit American audiences as well; Pop Idol becomes American Idol when it crosses the Atlantic, Strictly Come Dancing becomes Dancing With the Stars - a programme which, it may interest you to know, invited me to appear on it last season, an invitation I declined.

Songs by great artists are covered by lesser artists; on inauguration day this year, Beyoncé performed her version of Etta James's classic "At Last" to the considerable irritation of Etta James herself (but then, James seemed even more irritated by the election of Barack Obama, so perhaps she was just in a bad mood). All of these are examples of the myriad variations of adaptation, an insatiable process which can sometimes seem voracious, world-swallowing, as if we now live in a culture that endlessly cannibalises itself, so that, eventually, it will have eaten itself up completely. Anyone can make a list of the many catastrophic adaptations they have seen - my personal favourites being David Lean's ridiculous film of A Passage to India, in which Alec Guinness as a Hindu wise man dangles his feet blasphemously in the waters of a sacred water tank; and the Merchant Ivory emasculation of Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, in which Ishiguro's guilty-as-hell British Nazi aristocrat is portrayed as a lovable, misguided, deceived old bugger more deserving of our sympathy than our scorn.

But adaptation can be a creative as well as a destructive force. Rod Stewart singing "Downtown Train" is almost the equal of Tom Waits, and Joe Cocker singing "With a Little Help from My Friends" achieves the rare feat of singing a Beatles song better than the Beatles did, which is less impressive when you remember that the original singer was Ringo Starr. I'm currently teaching a course that highlights some of the instances in which fine books have been adapted into fine films - Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence mutated into Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence; Giuseppe di Lampedusa's portrait of Sicily in 1860, The Leopard, turned into Luchino Visconti's greatest film; Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood became a wonderful John Huston movie; and, in his film of Great Expectations, Lean produced a classic that can stand alongside the Dickens novel without any sense of inferiority, a film that allows this film-goer, at least, to forgive him for the later blunders of A Passage to India. Read the rest.

The Film Club

At our last meeting, we discussed "The Film Club," a memoir by David Gilmour.  One the surface, the book can be seen as just a story about a father's unusual tactics to get his son to go back to school.  But there is so much more going on here.  The book is as much about the son as it is about the father.  Gilmour's struggle to steer his son in a more positive direction forces him to recognize his own short-comings and ultimately, I think he grows and learns as much as, if not more than, his son.  

One of the things that we discussed and all thought was a unique and admirable thing was Gilmour's relationship with his wife and ex-wife.  He's able to do what most people only wish they could which is to put aside any grievances they may have after a relationship is over and work to build a new kind of relationship.  This is especially crucial when dealing with relationships that involve children.  Even Gilmour's new wife is able to join in the fold and not feel intimidated by the obvious strong bond that Gilmour continues to have with his ex-wife.

Another topic that came up was whether or not we believed that Gilmour  allowing his son to quit high school was a good thing.  There were view points on both sides of the spectrum.  

For the purposes of the blog, here are a few questions:

How did Gilmour's plan to get his son to go back to school ultimately work?  

How did Gilmour's plan affect his relationship with his son?

Knightley Cloned For New Movie

Here's a post I read on JoBlo.com this morning:

Just other day I was talking with a friend and lamenting the loss of Mark Romanek on THE WOLFMAN. I'm sure the movie will be great and all but I know Romanek would've brought something special to the material. Hopefully it won't be too long in before we get to see Romanek's first feature since 2002 as he's signed on to direct the sci-fi thriller NEVER LET ME GO for Fox Searchlight. Keira Knightley has signed on to star in the film that follows three English students who realize their boarding school is actually a farm for clones waiting to have their organs harvested. The movie is based on the novel of the same name by Kazuo Ishiguro and while it sounds like THE ISLAND, isn't quite the same as that Michae Bay action flick. The script was written by Alex Garland (28 DAYS LATER) and made the list of the 10 Best Unproduced Scripts for 2008. Production on the film is set to begin this April in London.

Extra Tidbit: Time Magazine named "Never Let Me Go" the best fiction novel of 2005.

Warlord: No Greater Friend, No Worse Enemy

Since this dialogue hasn't been started yet, I thought I'd go ahead and get us going so that those who couldn't make it to the meeting can chime in.

My first thoughts as I finished the book were that I didn't like it and that I didn't like Ilario.  The man that I was supposed to have sympathy for came off as arrogant and self-righteous.  Believing that he wasn't responsible for the charges that were brought against him was hard because I didn't "like" him.  But that's not enough to convict someone of a crime.

To do what they have to do in the armed forces, a certain amount of arrogance and bravado is necessary.  You have to be confident at all times that you have what it takes to succeed in your missions and without it, everyone and everything is lost.  

But it was because of this arrogance that I felt like I never really got a look beyond the facade he portrayed.  There was only one or two moments where I felt he was letting his guard down just a little, but then he would bring it all the way back up moments later.

I think that was my biggest issue with his story even though I know that it shouldn't be the deciding factor in his conviction.

What were everyone else's thoughts?

John Updike Dead at 76

Since we have read "Rabbit, Run" as part of our bookclub, I thought everyone would be interested in this news....

Prolific, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist John Updike has died of lung cancer at the age of 76.
According to publisher Alfred A. Knopf Inc., Updike died at a hospice not far from his home in Beverly Farms, Mass.
Several of his works wound up in Hollywood hands, most notably the James Caan-starring adaptation of one his most famous books, Rabbit, Run (which earned him his first Pulitzer), and The Witches of Eastwick, which, thanks to Jack Nicholson, Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer and Susan Sarandon became a star-studded, twice Oscar-nominated affair.
The author even went on to earn the ultimate pop-culture honor—playing himself in an episode of The Simpsons.
Updike's final work, My Father's Tears and Other Stories, his first collection of new short fiction since 2000, is scheduled for release on June 2.

Has anyone seen the film adaptation of "Rabbit, Run"? I didn't even know that there was one, but now I'd definitely be interested in seeing it...

Favorite Thing of 2008 - The Daily Beast's Buzz Board

One of my favorite discoveries of 2008 was the Daily Beast's Buzz Board: http://www.thedailybeast.com/beast-board/

The Daily Beast is an online news magazine founded by Tina Brown, former editor in chief of the New Yorker magazine. The website is a fun medley of the serious and silly. One minute you can get up to date on the biggest new stories of the day and, the next, you can immerse yourself in the latest celebrity gossip.

The best part of the site, for me, is the Buzz Board. It's a place where smart people (writers, politicians, celebrities, and entrepreneurs) - people in the know - recommend their favorite things. The choices are far ranging and freewheeling - picks include books, tech products, movies, music, restaurants, and philanthropic opportunities.

Whenever I’m looking for inspiration for what to read, see, and listen to or something new to explore, this is one of my go to places. Highly recommend checking it out. You may become as addicted as I am!

Favorite Things of 2008

It might be a little late for this, but I'm interested in learning about some of our favorites books, films, music, and events from last year. Perhaps we could write a few words on what moved, enlightened or entertained us in 2008.

I will post one of my favorite things shortly - looking forward to reading yours.