Posts Tagged John Green
BOOK to FILM: Get Reading!
Posted by Amy Steele in Books, Film, TV on December 25, 2014
Recently watched The Drop. It’s just like the book as Dennis Lehane wrote the screenplay for the film based on a short story and then wrote the novel based on the screenplay. It stars Noomi Rapace, Tom Hardy, James Gandolfini and a cute cute cute puppy! Plenty of Dennis Lehane novels have been adapted to film– Shutter Island, Gone Baby Gone.
Even though I’m not an avid mystery/thriller reader, I’ve sought out a few Dennis Lehane because he’s a local author and many of his books take place in Boston.I took Live By Night out of the library because Ben Affleck will be directing the film version of that one this summer. Read Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout when it came out many years ago [Strout is also a lively speaker] and am delighted to see such a quality miniseries on HBO with Frances McDormand. I don’t read a lot of mystery/thrillers so if they’re adapted to film I’ve likely not read all that many of them.
Like most people I read John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars as well as The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins before I saw the wonderful film versions. Sometimes the film version is better than the book but often the book is better than the film. Sometimes it’s a good story either way. I’m a bibliophile but not a literary snob that must read every book before seeing its cinematic adaptation. Most Nicholas Sparks, fantasy, romance or YA I’ll give a pass.
Damian Lewis as Henry XIII
It’s usually best to read the book a while before the film comes out or cast announcements unless you want to envision certain actors in the role. I read Shutter Island right before I saw the film so I pictured Leo DiCaprio the entire time. Not a bad thing. I plan to read Wolf Hall in the next month before the BBC mini-series starring Damian Lewis as Henry XIII.
some 2015 film releases and the source material:
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
starring: Simona Brown; Hetty Baynes; Lolita Chakrabarti
release date: February on BBC One
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
starring: Carey Mulligan; Tom Sturridge; Matthias Schoenaerts
release date: May 1
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
starring: Tom Hardy; Gary Oldman; Noomi Rapace; Paddy Considine; Dev Patel and Charles Dance.
release date: April 17
Serena by Ron Rash
starring: Jennifer Lawrence; Bradley Cooper
release date: March 27
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
starring: Charlize Theron; Chloe Grace Moretz; Christina Hendricks; Nicholas Hoult and Corey Stoll.
release date: TBD
The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith
starring: Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara
release date: TBD
The Mordecai Trilogy by Kyril Bonfiglioli
starring: Johnny Depp, Gwyneth Paltrow; Ewan McGregor
release date: January 23
Me Before You by Jo Jo Moyes
starring: Emilia Clarke; Sam Claflin
release date: August 21
Black Mass by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill
starring: Johnny Depp; Benedict Cumberbatch; Kevin Bacon; Juno Temple
release date: September 18
The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
starring: Rooney Mara; Vanessa Redgrave; Eric Bana; Jeremy Irons
release date: TBD
The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman
starring: Jessica Chastain
release date: TBD
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
starring: Robert Redford; Nick Nolte
release date: TBD
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Entertainment Realm’s 20 Picks for Best Fiction [1-10]
Posted by Amy Steele in Books on December 21, 2012
Making lists of my favorite books, music, films proves challenging every year. Thus I’m making a list of 20. To put it in perspective, I’ve read 90 books at this writing. I have a few in progress. Here are the one’s that I keep thinking about and recommending to others [If I reviewed it, I linked to the review]:
1.The People of Forever are Not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu [Hogarth]
2. The Collective by Don Lee [W.W.Norton]
3. The Age of Desire by Jennie Fields [Pamela Dorman]
4. This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz [Riverhead]
5. Dirt by David Vann [Harper]
6. The Last Nude by Ellis Avery [Riverhead]
7. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green [Dutton]
8. Too Bright to Hear Too Loud To See by Juliann Garey [Soho]
9. The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus [Knopf]
10. Stay Awake: stories by Dan Chaon [Ballantine/Random House]
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BOOKS: Best of 2012 So Far
Posted by Amy Steele in Books on September 10, 2012
[these are listed in the order that I’ve read them]
The Last Nude by Ellis Avery [Riverhead, 2012]
The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margo Livesey [HarperCollins, 2012]
Stay Awake: stories by Dan Chaon [Ballantine/Random House, 2012]
Charlotte au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood by Charlotte Silver [2012]
Make It Stay by Joan Frank [Permanent Press, 2012]
Divorce Islamic Style by Amara Lakhous [Europa, April 2012]
The Lion is In by Delia Ephron [March 2012]
Guts by Kristen Johnston [March 2012]
Threats by Amelia Gray [Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012]
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green [Dutton, 2012]
Dirt by David Vann [Harper, April 2012]
I Suck at Girls by Justin Halpern [IT Books, 2012]
Lizz Free or Die by Lizz Winstead [Riverhead Books, 2012]
MISS FULLER by April Bernard [SteerForth Press, 2012]
The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian [Doubleday, 2012]
The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus [Knopf, 2012]
This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz [Riverhead, 2012]
The Age of Desire by Jennie Fields [Pamela Dorman, 2012]
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BOOK OF THE MONTH: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Posted by Amy Steele in Books on May 8, 2012
Not sure why I chose to read this except that I’d seen it on many bestseller lists. In general, I don’t choose YA fiction although I thoroughly enjoyed The Hunger Games series. I read those due to the buzz.
The Fault in Our Stars is SO well-written: it’s lyrical, quotable, smart, funny and moving. Everything you look for in a novel about a young girl with terminal cancer. 16-year-old Hazel meets the charming Augustus in a cancer support group. The two have an honest, sweet first love that maybe only dying cancer patients can have.
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About Me
covering mostly music and books. focus on alternative/indie and women in music, literature and the arts. feminist. vegan. mostly alternative, a bit bohemian. Masters in journalism from Boston University. BA from Simmons College.
Entertainment Realm by Amy Steele is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at entertainmentrealm.comCopyright © 2009. All writing, unless otherwise noted, by Amy Steele.
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