Posted June 26, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Question Tuesday / 0 Comments
“Never judge a book by its movie” – J.W. Eagan
I’m not sure if I’ve seen a movie that I liked more than the book. I know if I read American Psycho before seeing the movie I might have enjoyed it more. I think there are plenty of examples of books I didn’t enjoy because I saw the movie first. Others include Psycho by Robert Bloch and Limitless by Alan Glynn. There are a few movies that I enjoyed more than the books, like The Bone Collector by Jeffery Deaver, The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson and The Hunter by Richard Stark (Payback, 1999) There are books I thought were average and I would rather invest 2 hours watching the movie than 8 or more hours reading the books. Even if the movies turned out bad, it was still less of an investment than reading the book.
Graphic novels seem to be the best at being adapted to movies. Ghost World by Daniel Clowes, Sin City by Frank Miller, Kick Ass by Mark Millar and V for Vendetta, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Watchman by Alan Moore all seem to be good examples of that. While all these graphic novels are decent, I prefer the movies over the books. I’m sure many people will disagree with this but that’s my opinion. What movies do people prefer over the books?
While we are on the topic of Movie Adaptions; one of the things I hate most about them, is when the cover of the books change to match the movie posters or even the name of the book changing to match. I really hate owning a book with the movie name or cover on it but sometimes there is just no getting away from it.
Posted April 30, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Monthly Reading / 0 Comments
April has been a great month, not only with the amount of reading that I’ve been able to do but also with the celebration of, firstly, my wife’s birthday and then my sister-in-law’s. Also during the month I was able to take a mini vacation from work, a great chance to recharge and enjoy some reading. In terms of reading, I managed to read more books than I imagined, including some great recent releases, a chilling classic and unfortunately a high amount of below average novels.
Surprisingly, I read a few Magic Realism books with The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey and the massive 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami; while this genre is weird and not really my style, it was good to experience some the genre first hand. I also read a few novels that have recently been adapted into movies in preparation for their releases; The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Overall this month has been a great month of reading for me, knocking out twelve different books.
Highlights for this month included the steampunkish action adventure novel Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway; imagine if Charles Dickens wrote a good James Bondish novel and that is what you’ll find in this book. Also the dark disturbing story of a woman suffering the effects and after effects of a very unhealthy relationship in Elizabeth Haynes’ brilliant debut novel Into the Darkest Corner. As well as the Henry James classic, a gothic horror masterpiece; The Turn of the Screw.
April’s Books
