Book to screen adaptions I’m most looking forward to in 2018

Posted on March 22, 2018 by Emma @ The Stacked Shelf

Everyone has an opinion on whether they love or hate seeing their favourite books being turned into TV shows or movies. I personally really like watching how books get interpreted by different people and how they appeal to a wider audience – although I’ll almost always maintain that the original books are better and I’m always the first to point out if a particular plot point has been skipped or changed!

This year, it sounds like we’ve got some really interesting TV and film adaptations coming up – so I’ve pulled together a few that I’m most excited about.

(This list might be more relevant to UK readers, as the TV section features UK channels, so apologies if you don’t get these where you are!)
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– Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Adapted for… TV. Coming to ITV later this year.
This is a classic, and even though I read it some time ago, I remember enjoying it. The length of the novel, the timespan it covers and the huge cast of characters offers endless material for a series, plus I love a good period drama. I can imagine this being perfect Sunday night viewing, so I’m looking forward to this one!

– A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Adapted for… TV. Coming to Sky1 later this year.
I loved this book series and the characters, so I’m looking forward to seeing how they come to life on screen. It’s been a while since I read it so hopefully I won’t get too bogged down in minor details and bug bears that sometimes come with watching a book adapted for the screen. I’m also a fan of any TV series that features the supernatural, so I’m confident I’ll enjoy this one!

– The Little Drummer Girl by John Le Carre
Adapted for… TV. Coming later this year as a BBC series.
This isn’t a book that I’ve read, but I loved the Night Manager adaptation and John Le Carre can always be counted on to produce an excellent story. Plus this adaption features Alexander Skarsgard (of True Blood fame for those that don’t know) who’s always fantastic.

– A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
Adapted for… TV. Coming later this year as a BBC series.
This has been on the list of books I want to read for years, but I’ve never managed to get to it. It’s such a long book that I don’t see myself reading it anytime soon, so I think here I might just wait for the TV adaptation.

– The Children Act by Ian McEwan
Adapted for… Big Screen. Coming out in the UK in August 2018.
I loved this book, and I can completely see how it could be adapted into a really great movie. It stars Emma Thompson, who I love, and the book was written by Ian McEwan, who I also love.

– Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple
Adapted for… Big Screen. Coming out in in the UK later in 2018.
The book was great (see my review here), and I’m so interested to see how they adapt it. The book uses lots of different types of media to tell the story (letters, reports etc), so I’m looking forward to seeing how this is represented on screen.

– Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Adapted for… Big Screen. Coming out in in the UK in March 2018.
I’ve actually just finished reading this book and I can’t even describe how much I loved it! It’s so jam packed full of action and I can already imagine how it’ll make an awesome movie, but I’m so glad I read the book first! Plus it’s being adapted by Steven Spielberg, so guaranteed to be a hit.

– On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Adapted for… Big Screen. Coming out in in the UK in May 2018.
This is another that I haven’t read – but I do actually already own it. As it’s a relatively short book I’m again aiming to read this before seeing the film. This is another one by Ian McEwan, who can always be counted on for a great read, so I’m looking forward to both reading and watching this.

What are your favourite book to screen adaptions? Are there any coming up that you’re looking forward to?

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy

Posted on March 12, 2018 by Emma @ The Stacked Shelf

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

I’ve been putting off reviewing The Ministry of Utmost Happiness for ages – as despite my very best efforts to like this book, it just wasn’t for me!

Arundhati Roy is known for her political activism, and her views and opinions are made abundantly clear in her writing. Through the eyes of her characters, she paints a stark and vivid picture of India after the partition, the conflict in Kashmir and the rigid caste system against a backdrop of politics and religion.

Having a better knowledge of key events in India’s history as well as important recent political figures would have been so helpful here, as I spent a LOT of the time looking references and background up on the internet.

This was the side of things I did somewhat enjoy, as I like learning more about different cultures and histories. However, without some existing knowledge (internet based or otherwise!) of recent Indian politics, history and the key players, this book would have been impossible to make sense of.

The parts of this book that have stuck with me are the stories about the ordinary people, caught up in the atrocities and injustices that surround them with no hope of breaking free. From the villagers in the Kashmir to the people living on the street in Delhi, this is a recurring theme. There is a stark contrast between the haves and the have-nots. On the one hand, people are moving forward into the future, with technology and tourism and everything that goes with it, while for others this is hopelessly out of reach.

However, the book is long and meandering. It skips from place to place and time to time, sometimes narrating events from a distance and sometimes homing right in on the details of a particular character. Often the story veers off into a long and extended anecdote or political discussion. I personally found that it really difficult to follow the main thread of the story.

I also found it hard to relate to the characters. We’re told details about their lives but they didn’t come alive to me and it all felt quite detached. There are also so many characters, some of which seem to have nothing to do with the main story. I understand that all of this is intended to build a rich picture of India and the different people that live there, but I would have preferred to have more of a personal connection to the people around who the plot revolves.

Clearly Roy was trying to raise awareness of some really important issues, but for me the writing style felt heavy and dense. It felt like this was a book that was written to make a point, rather than to be enjoyable for readers. Each page felt like a bit of a slog to read and I had to force myself to keep picking it back up. I finished it with a sense of achievement and relief, but I couldn’t say that I enjoyed it.

February wrap up

Posted on March 6, 2018 by Emma @ The Stacked Shelf

Compared to January, which was a really good reading month for me, February was definitely a bad month! I managed to read just three new books.

One of these was the latest book in the Peter Grant series by Ben Aaronovitch. I was really looking forward to reading this one as I loved the first few in the series, but even though I did enjoy this one, I feel like after six books the series is getting a little repetitive and might need a bit of something different to give it life again.

I’m blaming this on the fact that February was a shorter month, and the days just seemed to fly by. I had a lot on at weekends in February as well, so my reading time was eaten into. I’m also struggling at the moment to find a really good book to get into. I’m finding myself reading the news or browsing social media instead of picking up a book on my commute – which is usually prime reading time for me – so that might have something to do with my lack of productivity!

As well as the new books that I managed to read though, I did re-read the first five books in the Throne of Glass series, as I’d completely forgotten what happened and wanted to catch up before reading the latest one. If you count these into my stats, February actually wasn’t that bad. But in general, I don’t include re-reads in my Goodreads totals.

I feel like other people might have different views on this though – does anyone else include rereads? I don’t reread books that often and when I do, I tend to read them faster and skim read sections that don’t interest me, so they don’t feel like ‘proper’ reads.

Books read: