Sandi Shilhanek |The Great Debate: Read the Book or Watch the Movie?

If you follow my contributions to this blog you know that I often get my inspiration from one of my many yahoo groups. Thanks to one of those groups I have my idea for this week…. what is your opinion of books made into movies?



The book being discussed is The Secret Life of Bees, which I personally have not read. I have not seen the movie either, but am being led to believe it shall soon be available on DVD.

So the dilemma is…do I read the book first or watch the movie first?

What would you do?

What about when you have already read a book, such as when I had already read The Pelican Brief by John Grisham, and then it was turned into a movie.

Naturally I had to see the movie, and I felt very satisfied that the movie followed the book.

However, when I read The Client (my personal favorite Grisham book) I was disappointed when I saw the movie because I didn’t think it followed the book well at all.

This leads to the idea of Harry Potter…the books versus the movies. Naturally they can’t put everything from such a large book into a movie. Should they break it into several movies, or should they do as Reader’s Digest does and show a condensed version?

As you can see I’ve got lots of questions and not many answers about books and the movies they turn into. I’m hoping that because you came here to read this week’s contribution that you can provide me with some good answers, or at least some interesting ideas to ponder.

Until next week...

Sandi
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Sandi Shilhanek | Reading Slump

Over the course of the last few weeks we’ve discussed many different things, and hopefully they’ve been as entertaining for you as they have been for me, but what’s on my mind this week might be a tad depressing.

At the beginning of a new month my yahoo groups discuss what they read the previous month, and what new books they’re anticipating during the current month. It’s one of my favorite times to see what books I might have missed out on, and what books I might not be aware are coming.

For October I only read four books. To me that’s a tad depressing. I know I can read more than that. Why didn’t I? The only thing I know for sure about that is that you don’t know because you’re not me, and weren’t there for my various moods, real life moments, and perhaps poor book choices. Do four books when I can read perhaps as many as 10 in a month constitute a slump?
Of course I want you to say no…four books is great you’re not in a slump. I only read three books, so you did one better than me, but realistically that’s not going to happen, so I’ll probably have to suck it up and admit to being in something of a slump. Now to figure out how to get out of it!

Here’s where I’m open to suggestions…what do you consider to be a reading slump? What do you do if you find yourself in one, how do you get out of it? Maybe the four new books I bought this afternoon will bring me out of mine…who knows, but I’m off to explore the shelves to see which book is going to be the slump breaker for me!