Antiquarian and Classic Book Reviews
Books that are closely related to a film. Whether they are adaptations of a film, have been adapted into a film, or are extensions of a film, they can be found here.
I came late to the work of Dorothy Parker and I came to it in a piecemeal way that I think many modern readers come to it. Honestly, I knew more about the saga of Parker’s mortal remains being stored in a filing cabinet for decades than I did about her.
Don’t let the size of The Price of the Ticket discourage you. It was a collected volume that was worth the time and the effort and did not break my normally quick reading flow.
Lawrence and Lee make a powerful statement about what it means to stand up for what is right in the face of an overpowering multitude fixed on carrying on in the wrong.
Partly prose and partly poetry, in Blue Jarman explores what it means to be in a body that is failing with mind that is still full of life and wonder.
There’s a lot that Clark has added to these stories (and taken out of them) in order to arrive at the masterpiece of film he has produced. He’s done a lot with the original material.
As Alice evades her dour sister on the riverbank and slips into the realm of cats that talk and tea parties with rotating cups, she is finding the joy of being in one’s own world and one’s own mind.
I read it for the first time when I was far too young for it, all of the way back in 1994. I loved it then, but I didn’t appreciate the nuances of what Berendt was trying to say.
Patrick Hamilton’s Rope is a subtle kind of spooky. It’s not a murder-mystery. The murder has happened and it is no mystery who did it.
Dark academia has become a much-talked-about off-shoot of the spookier genres, and I would say that label fits Picnic at Hanging Rock.
Even the whitest of picket fences can hide a twisting darkness. And that very pressure could itself serve as one of the most complex themes of noir — that of dreams deferred and decisions made with extreme regret.
