Month: September 2019

September brings cooler nights and shorter days. Have you noticed the change? This September, the big screen brings several books to the movies. Whether you enjoy the change from book to film is a personal battle.

Most of the time, the book delves deeper into the characters, details, plot because they aren’t limited by time, only pages. Images come alive in your mind and intertwine with your experiences. You and the author share a sacred moment as you journey mind to mind through the pages.

“But the moon was so large and clear through the uncurtained window that it made me think instead of a story my mother had told me, about driving to horse shows with her mother and father in the back seat of their old Buick when she was little. “It was a lot of traveling—ten hours sometimes through hard country. Ferris wheels, rodeo rings with sawdust, everything smelled like popcorn and horse manure. One night we were in San Antonio, and I was having a bit of a melt-down—wanting my own room, you know, my dog, my own bed—and Daddy lifted me up on the fairgrounds and told me to look at the moon. ‘When you feel homesick,’ he said, ‘just look up. Because the moon is the same wherever you go.’ So after he died, and I had to go to Aunt Bess—I mean, even now, in the city, when I see a full moon, it’s like he’s telling me not to look back or feel sad about things, that home is wherever I am.” She kissed me on the nose. “Or where you are, puppy. The center of my earth is you.” Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch

The words paint a clear vision in one’s mind, and you can relate to the character. The words take you to your father, mother, room, etc. In film form this interaction might take a minute or less. Perhaps, it won’t make the final cut. Either way, the film isn’t the same. It isn’t your father entering your mind; it’s the actor. The book takes you to your safe place, while the movie creates a new image of a safe place.

The movie just hit theaters this week, so there is time to still read the book. Discover Donna Tartt’s talent for creating dramatic images by reading one of her novels today.

Cinematography is powerful, no doubt. It leaves one breathless at times and a picture is worth a thousand words. The problem is – it isn’t your picture. It is the director’s picture and/or interpretation. That’s the biggest difference between reading and watching. Reading allows you to be involved in the creation of the picture. The author lays the details out for you, but your mind fashions the image.

Downton Abbey fans have been waiting anxiously for the arrival of the new film which hits theaters September 20, 2019. However, what most fans don’t know is Downton Abbey was inspired by a book by Gail MacColl and Carol Wallace written in 1989. The book is called To Marry an English Lord. According to Wallace, the film begins where the book ends. It is, if you will, the back story of Cora and Lord Crawley’s introduction, courtship, and marriage. As you wait patiently (okay not so patiently) for September 20, enjoy the rest of the story of Cora and Robert Crawley by reading the book.

Stephen King is a master at creating suspenseful and supernatural scenes to scare the toughest of reader. King brings our worst what-if scenarios into a realistic plot. That’s what is so terrifying. You have a fear, he makes it realistic. King’s IT was first published in 1986 and the first film came out in a mini-series form in 1990. It became a film in 2017 with the final part of the story hitting the big screen September 9th, 2019. If you haven’t read IT, or you need a refresher, grab a copy while the movie is still in theaters.

“Calling it a simple schoolgirl crush was like saying a Rolls-Royce was a vehicle with four wheels, something like a hay-wagon. She did not giggle wildly and blush when she saw him, nor did she chalk his name on trees or write it on the walls of the Kissing Bridge. She simply lived with his face in her heart all the time, a kind of sweet, hurtful ache. She would have died for him..”
― Stephen King, It