Title: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Goodreads)
Author: Jonathan Safran Foer
Published: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005
Pages: 326
Genres: Literary Fiction
My Copy: Personal Copy
Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)
I read this book because in preparation for the movie and thought that was a good excuse to read it. I’ve been interested in reading a Jonathan Safran Foer for a while (yet another step in becoming a book snob) and now I had no excuse. While the movie looks really good, I’ve struggled with how it would work now that I’ve read the book. There is a lot of key elements of this book that would not translate well in a movie, for example Oskar’s inner thoughts, the letters he writes to random people that interest him and then there is the renter (Oskar’s grandfather) who doesn’t speak at all and writes everything on paper for others to read.
This book was such a pleasure to read, while it’s not a particularly exciting plot; the characters and the writing were just so great that it was nothing but a joy to read. I’ve heard people call Jonathan Safran Foer’s writing manipulative and even overly sweet and I can see what they are saying, in this book everyone seemed to be nice and have very little flaws but for me I think this is just simply because this particular story was told by a 9 year old boy. There are a lot of elements of trauma and mourning as the family struggle to come to terms with the events of 9/11 and losing someone so close to them. Even Oskar himself struggles between self-destruction and self-preservation throughout this book but overall the book comes across as very light and sweet.
I really did enjoy this book, while I might have some issues with the book and the upcoming movie adaptation I highly recommend this book. Not often do I get such pleasure in the writing style of a book but Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was one of those books I liked simply because it was beautifully written.
Title: Partials (
I’d like to say that there isn’t any book that I won’t read if it was recommended to me but there are books that I’ve put off reading but really need to get around to reading. My wife has been my biggest supporter; even before I became a reader she was encouraging me to read and to improve myself. I love her for that. One of the first books I read when I started out as a reader in 2009 was one of the books she gave me, which was Jeff Lindsay’s first book in the Dexter Morgan series; Darkly Dreaming Dexter. She knew that I loved the TV series and she helped use that as a good way to get me into reading. I did end up loving the series and is one of the few series that I’ve actually read all the books in it. But she has given me other books, which I’m still to read; mainly Confessions by Augustine of Hippo but the reason I’ve been putting it off because I have so many great books to read and I haven’t felt drawn to the book yet. I think if I read the book I might enjoy it, he seems to have had an interesting life and I’m interested in the internal struggle of a man between good and evil. There really isn’t a good excuse for not reading it. I should really read it sometime soon. I would love to hear from others if they want to answer this question also.
Title: Angelmaker (
Title: When Gravity Fails (
Title: The Last Kind Words (
Title: Heart of Darkness (
Since become a bibliophile I’ve tried to read the books before seeing the movie adaptation, but this is often difficult; there are so many books being made into movies and often I don’t find out about them until closer to the release date. There is a site called Read it 1st which sends out newsletters of books being turned into movies but sadly this site has been inactive for a while and Hank Green is just too busy doing all the jobs. So with a little help from an article from iO9 and some Google searching I’ve decided to give people an idea of the 30 new film adaptations currently in the works. Just a warning some of these movies are still in development and some may never make it to a release date.