Monday Book/Movie Meme

This weekly meme is hosted by the fabulous Sheila at Book Journey.

Books Reviewed:

• The Black Flower by Howard Bahr — This well researched Civil War novel is written in poetic style; I often paused to savor the exquisite language.
• The Trouble With Half a Moon by Danette Vigilante — This is a terrific debut novel by a promising YA author.
• Persepolis II by Marjane Sartrapi — I reviewed this graphic novel; I also talked about Ana’s post about journeys and homecomings and why I love multicultural literature so much.
• Nothing Pink by Mark Hardy — Teen GLBT lit.

Also Read:

A masterly, haunting new novel from a writer heralded by The Washington Post Book World as “the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe,” Half of a Yellow Sun recreates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria, and the chilling violence that followed.

With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor’s beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and they must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another.

New Movies:

Is there such a thing as meta-film-making? This cleverly crafted movie chronicles screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s frustrating efforts to adapt a book titled The Orchid Thief into a movie. We see the angst ridden writer agree to write the script, pore over the book, and wrestle with the typewriter. Of course there is a fictional twin brother and some crazy plot twists thrown in. The film title is multi-faceted. It refers to the process of adapting a book into a screenplay, Darwinian evolution, and a person adapting to the twists and turns of life, coping with the differences between ones expectations and where ones life ends up. It’s worth watching just to see how Kaufman wove these ideas together. I really liked this movie — it was well acted, surprisingly funny, and thoroughly unique.