Friday, January 25, 2008

Old Book, New Book

I figured I ought to at least start mentioning the books I'm reading. Since I started listing what I'm reading on the sidebar, I feel like I should at least make mention of it in the blog when I finish one and move on to the next. Yesterday I finished reading "High Fidelity" by Nick Hornby. I've pretty much seen the whole movie, but maybe not in one sitting and figured I should give the book a shot, as I've heard of quite a few Hornby books, but never actually read any. Also, usually I find that if I like a movie, then the book is definitely worth checking out. The opposite is sadly not as likely. For some reason I have a sense of loyalty to the book that makes me upset when they change things in the movie, especially when there doesn't seem to be any apparent reason. Anyway, tangent over, its turns out that "High Fidelity" the movie is a shockingly faithful adaptation of "High Fidelity" the book. So much so that a) it was like I was reading the script of the movie, b) I kept wondering if it wasn't one of those books thats written after the movie, like when the Star Wars people hire Terry Brooks to write "Phantom Menace: The Book", and c) there really wasn't much suspense because everything played out exactly the same as in the movie, except that everything was quid and pence instead of dollars.

Not to say that that was overall a bad thing. I liked the movie, so I also liked the book, and would recommend them, with the caveat that there is a considerable amount of adult language and sexual content. Not explicit sexual content, but sexual content nonetheless. Oh, and in case you don't know anything about it, its about a 35-year-old who owns a struggling record shop and his girlfriend breaks up with him.

Next up: Armageddon's Children, the first of a new series from Terry Brooks that, as far as I can tell from the first 13 pages, is going to bridge the gap from the "Knight of the Word" books to the Shannarra books.

No comments: