Based on a novel by a man named Lear.

The meme below has got me thinking about the books I’ve read. Some of my favourites have occupied a space down to you right for a good while now. This got me thinking about the ones that don’t quite make the all time favourite list, and this lead seamlessly to compiling a small list of those books that have been made into decent film. There aren’t many. While we’re at it I may as well cover (auto) biographies as well.

One of my biggest disappointments came with Coma by Alex Garland. I really enjoyed The Beach and Tesseract. I didn’t think much of the film version of The Beach though. Coma was a let down because I expected too much. It was far too short; in fact it should have been a short story. It’s a good job I got it from the library; I would have been pissed off if I’d paid good money for something he could have knocked up in an afternoon.

Clive barker is one author that always seems to write a very good story. Weaveworld and The great and secret show to name but two. Then he wrote Abarat, which may have been very good if you happen to be nine fucking years old. No mention on the cover that it’s a children’s story, again it was a fucking good job it was a library book.

I think one of the best film adaptations of a book was The Shining. Jack Nicholson was at his best as the insane hotel caretaker, and when the kid rides round the corner on his trike, only to be confronted by those freaky girls…. I almost befouled my trousers.

Contact, a Carl Sagan story, was made into an excellent film. None of your wishy-washy Hollywood endings or moral pontification here. Just a damn good story with a strange end.

I’ve read a lot of biographies and autobiographies and a couple stand out. First “Rex” by Rex Harrison was a fantastic read and even better because I knew absolutely nothing about him. The second was “Bring on the empty horses” by David Niven. This tells some amazing stories in the golden years of Hollywood.