Lights, Camera, Action: Great Books Made into Movies

Lots of books have been made into movies, and for good reason: the original book was pretty great. A bunch of people thought the book was worth going to all the trouble and expense to make into a movie. Many of these movies have become classics in and of themselves.

The current special collection (Books in the Bin) in my little library on the curb are books made into great movies, which I have enjoyed both reading and watching lately. It's best to go back to the original source, isn't it? And there is added motivation for reading a thick book when you get the extra reward of watching a film version or two when you're done and your eyes are really tired of reading. Plus there's always popcorn.

Even if you have read the book or seen the movie in the past, it's fun to reread and then rewatch with the book fresh on your mind. All that work of picturing in your mind's eye the landscape, the faces, the architecture, the clothing, is done for you. You find yourself saying, Yes, this is how I saw him or her, the setting, the time, the relationships. Or not. You feel like an expert critic after reading the book. You engage your mind and make judgments. Did the film succeed in capturing the essence of the story and characters?  Which character is most accurate? Which is least? Which actors would I have chosen to play the parts? Did the film communicate the author's sentiment, or did the film miss it or change it? How many films or series versions has this book been made into?

Here are the books in the bin:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis
The Black Stallion, Walter Farley
The Giver, Lois Lowry
Anne Franke: The Diary of a Young Girl
Daddy Long-Legs, Jean Webster
Emil and the Detectives, Erich Kastner
The Yearling, Rawlings

Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw (My Fair Lady)
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
Cry the Beloved Country, Alan Paton
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
One Hundred and One Dalmations, Dodie Smith
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Cheaper by the Dozen, Gilbreth

And some on my to-read pile:


Ben Hur, Lew Wallace
Anna and King of Siam, Margaret Landon
The Bridge Over the River Kwai, Pierre Boulle
Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
The Monuments Men, Robert M. Edsel

Enjoy reading and then watching!