7 Answers2025-04-27
Just wanted to mention “The Hiding Place”. This novel by Corrie ten Boom and her daughter is an amazing autobiographical work of a family’s efforts to hide Jews in Holland during WWII and their subsequent sojourn in a concentration camp and their experience of and response to their faith through all of it. The movie made of this novel in the 1970s is also excellent – a powerful, straightforward, amazing movie of great virtue.
The movie captures well the hardships Corrie endured and her many moments of peace and inspiration including the little trouble-making fleas in the barracks where she was being held. A great adaptation of a book of incredible true events of extreme hardship and radical faith and an excellent film for those of younger years or those that can’t get into books!
5 Answers2026-07-31
The commercial afterlife of a book is certainly an interesting subject to think about. The Little Prince, as a book, continues to sell in impressive numbers as a ‘classic’. The major film of the book has generated toys, games, clothes and even a theme park ride for fans. All over the world, on lunchboxes and toys etc., the Prince is depicted as a cartoon character. And this is the exact opposite to what the book is saying – that we should be valuing the things that are invisible, unique and have required a lot of time and effort in a relationship. The fox’s famous line from the book is ‘You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed’. Thus, the major film franchise about The Little Prince is responsible for ‘taming’ the story for masses of viewers everywhere. It is safe for them to watch. I am sure Saint-Exupéry would have been both amused and saddened by this. Adaptations of The Little Prince are trying to spread his message. But so much of what they do is precisely the thing that The Little Prince is criticizing.
9 Answers2025-08-19
My only interest in 'divorce romance' is for my parents to get back together. I would not be interested in watching a movie about that because the arguing scenes would be too real.
7 Answers2026-03-25
Otaku no Video is an older OVA that is sort of a documentary on the rise of the “otaku king.” Of course it would be all celebratory towards the end, but the “interviews” with live-action, 80s-shaded “real” otaku in the thing have that same cringeworthy, uncompromising authenticity that was the hallmark of Dorkin’s comic. The stories that make up the main body of the thing are sort of triumphant in hindsight, but the general take is that the main character’s an obsessive outcast, and the thing looks like a sort of time capsule of Eltingville-style intense fandom viewed by outsiders with revulsion and disgust.
6 Answers2026-07-29
One of my favorite short stories of all time is ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ by Edgar Allan Poe. There have been so many film adaptations of this short story over the years, including a great version by Roger Corman with Vincent Price in the 1960s, and more recently a Netflix series by Mike Flanagan. The short story is a masterpiece of gothic horror that creates a great atmosphere of madness and decay and of a house literally falling down. Most film adaptations fail to capture the density of Poe’s words and try to recreate the mood of the story, with the main objective of inducing dread, of portraying decay, and of announcing doom. The series by Flanagan is a very loose adaptation, using the title and the themes of the short story to create a modern horror series.
9 Answers2025-08-22
I have had no success with joining regular book clubs, but recently I joined a silent book club chapter. It’s a really cool concept. The group meets at a cafe or bar and briefly discusses what everyone is reading, then proceeds to silently read their own book for an hour. After that hour they may return to discuss what they read, but it’s really up to everyone individually. Because there is no set book for the group, there’s no pressure to finish a book that you’re not enjoying. The purpose is more to allow people who love to read to come together and have others around to discuss and share their love of reading. The Salt Lake City chapter has been adding members recently. I think it would be a great fit for introverted book lovers who want to meet up with other book lovers who do not feel the need to “perform” for the group. You just bring your current read and enjoy the company of other book lovers in a quiet setting.
10 Answers2025-08-02
Adapting spicy books into films is a tricky job and often the best ones aren’t 100% faithful to the original material. In order to translate the core emotions of the story into another medium (i.e. visual), sometimes characters have to be combined or locations/plot points have to change in order to get the same feeling. Also, the internal monologue of the original story doesn’t always translate well. I remember the film adaptation of The Hating Game took the office setting of the original and streamlined it in order to really make the chemistry between the two leads work. And The Space Between Us was one of the worst adapts of a ‘spicy book’ because it tried to include ALL of the original plot points and therefore lacked the soul of the book. The very spice that people loved about the book was lost in translation.
8 Answers2026-01-07
I also appreciated that the author never turned Sylvie into the bad guy that she was to Harriet, or that Harriet became the self-righteous, spoiled prig that Sylvie perceived her to be. Both characters were right. And both were wrong. I found both of them very sympathetic at times and very annoying at times. The author did an excellent job of writing a story that does not require the reader to take sides with either character. Their final conversation is pure mutual understanding, and it clarifies exactly why they cannot continue to be together. That is life. Their ending was excellent because it was so painful and it felt so true and earned. Neither plot device nor character assassination was used to bring about the conclusion of their relationship.
3 Answers2025-06-02
This movie is based off the book ‘The Da Vinci Code’ by Dan Brown. The movie brings the very intriguing puzzles and thrilling mystery to life with Tom Hanks playing the lead character, Robert Langdon. As much as I enjoyed the movie it didn’t do the book justice in terms of history. Another novel that was great as a movie was ‘Shutter Island’ by Dennis Lehane. This was a wonderful adaptation with Leonardo DiCaprio and an excellent job done by Martin Scorsese in creating a very haunting atmosphere in the film.
I also really love Big Little Lies – and this is a TV show which originated as a mystery novel by Liane Moriarty. The characters are amazing and the way in which the story is told is so full of atmosphere and I feel that the way in which a mystery is revealed on screen is so much more exciting than on the page.
10 Answers2026-05-25
And then there is fun. How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps is a parody of the RPG genre and of games similar to The Legend of Zelda. The “club” is the party the heroine collects on her journey. It’s short, it’s funny, it contains all the well-known elements of a RPG. This book is not trying to be deep. It’s just lots of fun for gamers and readers of fantasy in general. After having read a long and serious epic, this is the lighthearted, tropey way to a club saving the world. It’s a warm hug and a high-five for you.