Book vs Movie

Normally, I'm all about reading a book before I ever watch a movie that is based on it. For the most part I've been disappointed in most of the movies that have been released based on a classic or best-selling novel. Many don't follow the story-line close enough for my liking. Some have entirely different endings, while others leave out vital scenes or even characters. Take the movie Gone With the Wind for instance. If my memory serves me, you are only introduced to one of Scarlett's children - the daughter she shares with Rhett that she eventually loses in an accident. However, in the novel....you are introduced to ALL THREE of Scarlett's children (by three different father's I believe). If that isn't vital to the storyline...I don't know what is. Anyway, this is all background for the point I'm trying to make. I happened to see the movie, All the Pretty Horses starring Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz before I realized that it was based on the same, self-titled novel by Cormac McCarthy. I am about half-way through said novel as of today, and I must admit...I'm enjoying it immensely. As I read, I am also becoming more impressed with the movie and how accurately it portrays the novel. So far, scene for scene...it's an identical representation. When I was in high school and even college, I knew kids who would always rent the movie rather than reading the required selections. They usually ended up failing the exams because the two versions were so different. Unless there is some dramatic change at the end of the novel that differs from the conclusion of the movie, then All the Pretty Horses may just be the one book/movie duo that is the exemption to that rule. In other words...if you don't have time to read this one....rent the movie and go ahead and check it off your list! ;)

The Photograph, by Penelope Lively

OMG!!! If you haven't read this book yet...seriously think about putting it on your reading agenda. It is now 12:24am..as in...just past midnight...and I am sitting here typing this blog entry because I just finished reading that novel and now I can't sleep. I've tried everything (just ask Alan) and still, I can't get it out of my head. While I will admit that there are parts of the novel that tend to get a bit wordy, this is mostly due to the fact that a lot of the context contains "dreamlike" conversations in the form of the memories of each of the main characters. I don't want to reveal anything that is vital to the story, so I'm trying to censor my comments at this point. Let's just say that it is a rather haunting story that has my mind reeling even after having turned the last page. A worthy read for sure.

A "Classic" Case of Procrastination

The list below contains the most "famous" and most often studied literary works ever (according to data taken from college polls and literature examinations). I would like to be able to say that I have read each of these literary masterpieces sometime before I drop dead. (The ones I have read are in red...no pun intended). However, I know that realistically I probably won't accomplish that goal. There are simply too many books that I want to read to limit myself to the "classics" although I will certainly attempt to pick up one now and then.

*** Note: Some of these works are not novels. They may be plays, or narratives that are more likely to be found in an anthology or compilation of works. ***

1. A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare
2. The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
3. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
4. All My Sons - Arthur Miller
5. All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
6. America is in the Heart -
7. An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser
8. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
9. Another Country - James Baldwin
10. Antigone
11. Antony and Cleopatra - William Shakespeare
12. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
13. As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
14. As You Like It - William Shakespeare
15. The Awakening - Kate Chopin
16. The Bear
17. Beloved - Toni Morrison
18. Benito Cereno -
19. Billy Budd - Herman Melville
20. The Birthday Party
21. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
22. Bless Me, Ultima
23. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
24. The Bluest Eyes
25. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
26. Candide - Voltaire
27. The Caretaker
28. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
29. Cat's Eye - Margaret Eleanor Atwood
30. Ceremony
31. The Centaur -
32. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
33. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
34. The Crucible - Arthur Miller
35. Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton
36. Daisy Miller - Henry James
37. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
38. The Dead -
39. Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller
40. The Death of Ivan Ilyich -
41. Delta Wedding -
42. Desire Under the Elms -
43. The Deviners -
44. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant -
45. Doctor Faustus - Christopher Marlowe
46. The Dollmaker -
47. A Doll's House - Ibsen
48. Don Quixote - Cervantes
49. Emma - Jane Austen
50. An Enemy of the People -
51. Equus -
52. Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton
53. The Eumenides -
54. The Fall -
55. A Farewell to Arms - Earnest Hemingway
56. Fathers and Sons - Turgenev
57. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
58. Go Tell It On the Mountain - James Baldwin
59. The Glass Menagerie - Tennessee Williams
60. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
61. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
62. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
63. Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
64. The Hairy Ape - Eugene O'Neill
65. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
66. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Eleanor Atwood
67. Hard Times - Charles Dickens
68. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
69. Hedda Gabler - Ibsen
70. Henry IV - William Shakespeare
71. The Homecoming
72. House Made of Dawn
73. The House of Seven Gables - Nathaniel Hawthorne
74. Invisible Man - H.G. Wells
75. J.B.
76. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
77. Joseph Andrews
78. The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
79. Jude the Obscure
80. Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare
81. The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
82. King Lear - William Shakespeare
83. Light in August - William Faulkner
84. The Little Foxes
85. Long Day's Journey into Night - Eugene O'Neill
86. Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad
87. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
88. Love Medicine
89. "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock"
90. The Loved One
91. Lysistrata
92. M. Butterfly
93. Main Street - Sinclair Lewis
94. Macbeth - William Shakespeare
95. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
96. Major Barbara
97. Man and Superman - George Bernard Shaw
98. Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
99. The Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy
100. Medea
101. The Member of the Wedding - Carson McCullers
102. The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare
103. The Metamorphosis -
104. Middlemarch - George Eliot
105. The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot
106. The Misanthrope - Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere
107. Miss Lonelyhearts - Nathanael West
108. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
109. Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe
110. Mother Courage
111. Mrs. Dalloway
112. Mrs. Warren's Profession
113. Much Ado About Nothing - William Shakespeare
114. Murder in the Cathedral - T.S. Eliot
115. "My Last Duchess"
116. Native Son
117. Nineteen Eighty-Four
118. No Exit
119. No-No Boy
120. Notes from the Underground
121. Obasan
122. The Odyssey
123. Oedipus Rex
124. The Old Man and the Sea
125. One Hundred Years of Solitude
126. The Optimist's Daughter
127. The Oresteia
128. Othello - William Shakespeare
129. Our Mutual Friend
130. Our Town
131. Pamela
132. Paradise Lost
133. A Passage to India
134. Persuasion
135. Phedre
136. The Piano Lesson
137. Pnin
138. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
139. The Portrait of a Lady
140. Praisesong for the Widow
141. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
142. Pygmalion
143. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
144. A Raisin in the Sun
145. Redburn
146. Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare
147. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
148. The Rape of the Lock
149. Saint Joan
150. The Scarlet Letter
151. A Separate Peace
152. The Shipping News
153. Sister Carrie
154. Slaughterhouse Five
155. Song of Solomon
156. Sons and Lovers
157. The Sound and the Fury
158. The Stone Angel
159. The Stranger
160. A Streetcar Named Desire
161. Sula
162. The Sun Also Rises
163. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
164. Tartuffe
165. The Tempest
166. Tess of the D'Urbervilles
167. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neal Hurston
168. Things Fall Apart
169. To the Lighthouse
170. Tom Jones
171. The Trial
172. Tristam Shandy
173. The Turn of the Screw - Henry James
174. Twelfth Night - William Shakespeare
175. Uncle Tom's Cabin
176. Victory
177. Volpone
178. Waiting for Godot
179. The Warden
180. Washington Square
181. The Waste Land
182. Watch on the Rhine
183. The Watch that Ends the Night
184. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
185. Wide Sargasso Sea
186. The Winter's Tale
187. Winter in the Blood
188. Wise Blood
189. The Woman Warrior
190. Wuthering Heights - Charlotte Bronte
191. The Zoo Story
192. Zoot Suit

Welcome

Hi! If you have found this little hideaway...chances are you were invited. There's an even better chance that if you weren't you may be bored to death by the future content! LOL Oh well. I created this blog with the intent to share with other avid readers -- to muse... to share what I'm reading and see what others are reading... basically, to establish my own little "nook" in the world of all things literary. There are no rules. I read what interests and intrigues me across a wide range of genres, in accordance with my mood -- which (as with most women) changes frequently. LOL Anyone who wishes to join in on the journey is welcome! So...grab a cuppa, your favourite throw, and snuggle into a comfy spot. Oh yeah! Don't forget your book!