The Notebook (book)

Here is the description I found on the book and my appreciation. Haven't seen the movie yet, as soon as I do, I'll compare them. Love the book though.

THE NOTEBOOK

BY NICHOLAS SPARKS

The notebook begins with the story of Noah Calhoun, a rural Southerner returned home from War World II. Noah, thirty one, is restoring a plantation home to its former glory, and he is haunted by images of the beautiful girl he met fourteen years earlier and the intense love they shared, Noah is content to live with memories only . . . until she unexpectedly returns to his town to see him once again.

Allie Nelson, twenty-nine, is now engaged to another man, but realizes that the original passion she felt for Noah has not dimmed with the passage of time like her mother had assured. Still the obstacles that once ended their previous relationship remain, and the gulf between their worlds is too vast to ignore. With her impending marriage only weeks away, Allie is forced to confront her hopes and dreams for the future, a future that only she can shape.

Like a puzzle within a puzzle, the story of Noah and Allie is just the beginning. As it unfolds, their tale miraculously becomes something different, with much higher stakes. The result is a deeply moving portrait of love itself, the tender moments and the fundamental changes that affect us all. Shining with a beauty that is rarely found in current literature, THE NOTEBOOK establishes Nicholas Sparks as a classic storyteller with a unique insight into the only emotion that really matters.

I’m not a feminist or anything, well maybe a little bit, but seriously I cannot believe this novel was written by a guy. Not that I think guys can’t write like that, but he gets into Allie’s thoughts and explains her feelings in a way I thought only girls could.

This is one of the greatest love stories of all times, really, you got to read it.

movies based on the book

I was recently brosing the web and found this great source of movies that have been based on a book. This is the link: http://www.mcpl.lib.mo.us/readers/movies/movie.cfm
Sadly is not very useful because it only shows the titles, authors and year. Not much info on it, but if you are interested in the titles then check it out, its from a library.

If you are looking for something more elaborated, check this link: http://www.bookreporter.com/features/books2movies.asp they have an enormous list of movies based on books, with a short description and everything!

GREAT BOOKS VERSUS GREAT MOVIES

A great deal of blockbuster movies has been based on books. Here is a list of some of them:

BEN-HUR

Wallace, Lew

BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY

Waller, Robert James

DRACULA

Stoker, Bram

THE EXORCIST

Blatty, William

FAHRENHEIT 451

Bradbury, Ray

FORREST GUMP

Groom, Winston

FRANKENSTEIN

Shelley, Mary

THE GODFATHER

Puzo, Mario

GONE WITH THE WIND

Mitchell, Margaret

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

Duncan, Lois

JAWS

Benchley, Peter

LES MISERABLES

Hugo, Victor

THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK

Dumas, Alexandre

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

Sparks, Nicholas

PLANET OF THE APES

Boulle, Pierre

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Austen, Jane

ROSEMARY'S BABY

Levin, Ira

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

Harris, Thomas

THE THREE MUSKETEERS

Dumas, Alexandre

A WALK TO REMEMBER

Nicholas Sparks

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

Wells, H. G.

And of course my all time favorites: Harry Potter by J.K. Rowlings and The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien; among many, many others.

So here is the question: Is it worth spending hours, maybe days or even weeks of our precious time reading books when we can actually get the same content in a 90 minutes excellent produced movie?

I say ABSOLUTELY YES!

Books are by far the most reliable source of any kind of information. There is no way we can compare the long amusement we get by reading a book with the thrill and short excitement we get when watching a movie.

When reading a book, a novel, a fairytale, any kind of story, the author gets us inside the protagonists heads, we become aware of their past, their instincts, their movements, we become part of their thoughts, their ideas, we become accomplice of their actions and we secretly feel doers, not only spectators.

I don't think there ever be a director good enough to fully get us inside a great book, let’s say Harry Potter for example, don’t get me wrong, I think the movies are really good, but why denied ourselves the chance of creating our own magic world? Get it our way, unique, special, private, only in our heads. Another person's perception is not enough. It shouldn't be.

In the seven book saga, J.K. Rowling gets us inside Harry's mind; it's a hilarious place to be. Especially with friends like Ron, Fred and George. The actors playing these roles are very good, but how can they show us what was going through Rowling's mind when she wrote the dialogues? They can't; that, we get from the books only. Same thing with the romance going on within Ron and Hermione. No way will you get that from a movie. A glimpse, maybe; but you'll be missing a great deal.

In the other hand though, I’ve heard, can’t confirm, but I heard the movie BEN HUR is way better than the book. Now, I know the movie is great, but said I can’t confirm because sadly, I didn’t read the book.

In that case, I must say it’s possible that a movie could be just as good as or even better than a book. I would say this can happen because the book was poorly written, or maybe the movie had great special effects, the actors were especially charming or they added things to the original text.

But for this to happen, especially in our days, I say we must not hold our breath. We have excellent writes nowadays, awesome writers.

So I say: Read! Not only because we have to, but because we want to. There is an art in reading, as Isaac D'Israeli said, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.

“No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.” - Confucius