@jasmine_tarkheena 

There are good movie adaptations of Treasure Island, but the book by far is the best. Robert Louis Stevenson was a great writer, and I liked Treasure Island the best of his books. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is fine story, but I prefer the sea adventure in stories like Kidnapped and Treasure Island. Movies can never be replacements for books, although the visual media can be helpful in understanding the time and place in which the stories take place. The films and television adaptations may also generate an interest in reading the original novels.

@narnian78 

Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are perhaps two of Robert Louis Stevenson's best known stories. Though I consider Treasure Island to be a great introduction for kids.

And it's true that adaptions (whether it's TV series or movies or musicals) will never be replacement for books. Though the visual media has creative ideas.

Posted by: @mel

...the books themselves are from the early 1800s or the books are set in the early 1800s? (I ask because I'm sure I've read books in the second category, but I'm not sure I've read anything in the first, so....)

They are set in the early 1800s. I'm not cool enough to actually own anything from the early 1800s like that.  

One quick off-topic note about The Wizard of Oz movie... it's one of two movies (the other being Star Wars Ep 5) that I really wish I could have seen in theaters when it was originally released. I think it would be amazing to see, for the first time, color in a movie as Dorothy entered Oz. And as I was reading the book to the kids, it was so funny because it was almost like the book was written for just such a technological advancement. 

Posted by: @col-klink

IMO, the movie makes a Dorothy a much better character. In the book, she's just kind of blandly cheerful and plucky all the time and she never seems phased by the wondrous things she encounters the way the Narnia protagonists, for example, do, so it's hard to empathize with her. The movie gives her more of an interesting character arc where she starts out wanting to get away from her home and comes to realize how much she loves it. (In the book, her goal is the same throughout.) The love-hate relationship she has with her aunt, I think, is really interesting. Even though Em doesn't get much screentime, the movie makes her quite a nuanced character.

I agree with you here, even though I like the book better! The film definitely makes her more interesting as a character in just the ways you say, and the same goes for Aunt Em. I just find it a little sad that the makers of it decided to make Oz into a sort of dream that reflects Dorothy's own hopes and loves and fears (and includes a number of people from her waking life transformed into fantasy characters), rather than a real world that she actually travels into and has to get back from, by real magic. I find it a bit astounding that they would believe magic and fantasy wouldn't be popular in movies, but then, I wasn't around in 1939 and can't judge from the perspective of someone who was...

Very interesting analysis of the two film versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory versus the book, by the way — thanks for sharing that!

I finished Dracula recently. I was kind of ready to be done with it since it felt like a lot of the last section was just building up to the climax

And I didn't like that parts of the story seemed to be about romanticizing euthanasia. (I'm sorry if that subject is too controversial for Narniaweb. It can easily be edited out of this post.) But it was a gripping read nonetheless and I can see why Dracula is such an iconic villain. 

In my last post on this thread, I mentioned that I didn't like L. Frank Baum's writing style, but I could understand why he was a famous author. There's actually a quote from the book, Fairy Tales and After: From Snow White to E. B. White by Roger Sale, which I think sums up why nicely. I actually disagree with most of the opinions expressed by Sale in that book (or at least half of them) but he kind of nailed Baum IMO. (Since "nailed" is such a violent sounding word, I should stress he enjoyed the Oz books on the whole.) 

The essence of Baum is his careless ease, his indifference to the complexities of life, his eagerness to describe what enchanted him without ever exploring or understanding it. Such people often become entertainers of one sort or another, but they seldom become writers. It might be said he had a knack for writing the way some people have a knack for singing or dancing or hitting a baseball. He obviously enjoyed writing but his view of himself as a pleaser of audiences and his indifference to any disciplining of his genius meant he often wrote a good deal he didn’t want to write.

P.S. 

Posted by: @courtenay

Very interesting analysis of the two film versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory versus the book, by the way — thanks for sharing that!

You're welcome. I'm glad someone enjoyed it.

The Oz books all have similar plots, but I have to say they are all worth reading. Lewis did not duplicate very much material in the seven Narnia books. L. Frank Baum and Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote books that were much the same perhaps because the readers demanded them. It may be that they didn’t want so much to write so many books based on one idea such as Oz or one character such as Tarzan, but both of them offered interesting stories which are very readable.  Baum and Burroughs are often considered popular, but their books are not usually seen as great literature. Tolkien’s books have stories which all take place in the same fantasy world of Middle Earth, but The Lord of the Rings is a very different adventure from The Hobbit and The Silmarillion.  If an author gives you a variety of different books it shows great talent and ability. 

 

It's kind of a shame we never really see anything new and original from Hollywood. A lot of Hollywood productions are based on books, and some have been done so many times.

Some could argue that Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are great classics by Robert Lewis Stevenson, yet we're constantly seeing different versions of them. Some could say the same for A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens yet we're constantly seeing different versions of it.

So, I have finished Charity Girl and I enjoyed it, I definitely need to see if the library has any of Georgette Heyer's books.  

I immediately started Dead Fall by Nancy Mehl, read it really quick and then moved onto Free Fall the final book in The Quantico Files. Not impressed at all, I'm not sure if the series is really just okay or if following an entertaining historical fiction with a just fair suspense fiction is making Dead Fall/Free Fall seems less than they are. I am leaning towards the series just being so-so, I feel like the dialog is really simple and stilted. I use to really enjoy Christian suspense fiction, but many of the newer books in the genre have not been worth reading.  

SnowAngel

I just recently finished reading Mary Norton's Borrowers series — all 5 books in one volume. I'd heard of these stories since I was little, but never got around to reading them, though I'm pretty sure we had them at the local library. What gave me the incentive was that there's a stage production of The Borrowers coming up at Theatre by the Lake in Keswick in November and December, and I'm planning to be there for a holiday that will coincide with the opening performances, so I booked a ticket and then decided I'd better read the original books beforehand!  

I loved the stories and the sheer detail with which Norton imagines these tiny people and their world, but the whole saga was so wrenching at times — the first four books each ended on a cliffhanger or a highly ambiguous note as to what had happened to Arrietty and her parents, or where they would be going from here. If I'd been following these books as they were being written, I would have been quite desperate for the next book to be published — if there would be one at all — so I could find out what happened next! Especially with the gap between book 4 (The Borrowers Aloft), published in 1961, and book 5 (The Borrowers Avenged), published in 1982!!!  

I was hugely relieved to find that the last book DID have a satisfying ending that wound everything up nicely with nothing important left hanging, but I'm even more relieved that I didn't have to wait 21 years to read it...  

(And as a nice touch, I should add, the fifth book was illustrated — beautifully, too — by none other than Pauline Baynes!! )

I love reading old Star Trek books.  I finally began reading the Star Trek Log books written by Alan Dean Foster which were published in the 1970’s.  The stories are from the animated series which only lasted for 22 episodes. I think the stories were improved by expanding them. The series was unfortunately confined to the half hour Saturday morning cartoon format, but when converted into book form the stories were made much better with improved character development and enhanced plots. They are well worth reading if you can find them, which isn’t too difficult for books that are out of print.

I got a boxed set of these for Christmas one year!

Most of the books I've been reading lately are for book clubs, and they have been lackluster at best. However, since the 4th Wax and Wayne book is out later this month I've been doing a Mistborn re-read, and that has been fun. Brandon Sanderson can almost always be counted on for a good read.

More importantly for Megan Whalen Turner fans: Moira's Pen is out today! I'm going to go read now.

@fantasia If all of your kids, as well as yourself, enjoyed The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, maybe you should check out Journey to the Blue Moon by Rebecca Rupp. It's a more modern children's fantasy story that's a lot like it without being a rip-off. The main characters are four companions and a dog who go on a journey through a "fairyland," each searching for something, a lost heart, a lost way, lost time. Of course, there's no guarantee that your family will enjoy it just because they enjoyed The Wizard of Oz, but maybe it's worth a look. Sorry if you check it out because of me and then hate it, but I don't imagine you care about my opinion that much.  

*stumbles in, blinking confusedly*

Oh, hello. Been a while.

Earlier this year, i moved back to Wisconsin (huzzah!), and joy of joys, i'm liking the library in my new city way better than most of the previous ones. For one thing, the building has more character and aesthetic appeal than the last few, and so far the circulation system has not failed me.

I'm not quite to the heights of a few years ago, when i suspect i read more books in a few months than i had in previous years combined, but i'm getting there. I've checked out a few re-reads -- some Christie mysteries, Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White which i remember liking better than The Moonstone -- but i think it's mostly new stuff. Slightly weighted in favor of new stuff.

After seeing several mentions of the series on tumblr, i've read through the first three books in the The Mysterious Benedict Society series. The first one is the best, in my opinion, with #3 being something of an improvement over #2, but i like them. The four main characters are distinct and interesting; Constance sometimes comes close to being the kind of character i don't like very much, but it did a lot to salvage my opinion of her when the end of book one revealed that she's

I'm of two minds on trying to watch the TV adaption on Disney+. On the one hand, i've heard it's not very faithful to the books (thematically at least), and in general i'm trying not to give Disney more attention than it's already getting. On the other, it could still be an enjoyable series, and it's been a while since i've watched an enjoyable new TV show. But that'd be a discussion for a different thread.

Another series i've been getting into is Maggie Stiefvater's Dreamer trilogy, which is a sequel series to The Raven Cycle. So far i've read the first two books. I'm not liking it as much as The Raven Cycle, for a number of reasons, but in my experience Stiefvater's strengths are her prose and her characters, and for the most part i'm liking both in the Dreamer books. I'll finish it, but i probably won't buy a copy for myself.

I've started The Eagle of the Ninth, a book i've been meaning to try after hearing it spoken of so highly here -- and finally living somewhere with a library circulation system that has it. It hasn't gripped me as tightly as the novelty of The Mysterious Benedict Society series or the inventive world of the Dreamer books, so it's fallen to the side a bit. Who knows, maybe i'll dig into it this weekend (though i shouldn't because there's other stuff i ought to be doing).

Oh, i visited a used book store last weekend, and picked up a few books there as well. One was Ella Enchanted, which i've already read at least once but didn't own a physical copy of, and two books by Erik Larson: The Devil in the White City and Thunderstruck. I read the latter years ago, but not the former. The interesting thing for me about these books is how Larson takes two different historical events, happening simultaneously, and ties them together: serial killer H.H. Holmes and the Chicago World Fair in The Devil in the White City, and the invention of the radio and the arrest of Dr. Crippen in Thunderstruck. Haven't put too much time into any of those books, as i own them and so there's no time limit on them, but i'm pretty sure i'll get to them soon. Ish.

At my last visit, i tried to remember a particular author i'd had referred to me here, but while i remembered bits of her name i couldn't recall the whole thing until after i'd gotten home and the library was already closed, naturally. I put a few mysteries by Ngaio Marsh on hold. It'd be nice to find a good new mystery author. While i was at the library, i read most of a more modern mystery that didn't really do much for me. I wish i was better at finding words for things, i'd like to be able to put into words what exactly wasn't working.

 

@SnowAngel, any success with finding more of Georgette Heyer's books?

I hope you enjoy the play of The Borrowers, @Courtenay! I read one or two of the books growing up but, unlike some other family members, was never really 'caught' by them.

@Dot, how was Moira's Pen? I haven't seen much chatter about it and the little I have seen seemed mixed.
I am looking forward to the 4th Wax and Wayne book, but hadn't thought about rereading (and probably won't get a chance to) - it's a great idea, I just never seem to do it for new books in series.

@arin, I'm glad to hear you're making use of your new library! I read the first two Mysterious Benedict Society books when they came out, but lost track after that and still haven't gone back and finished the series (though I'd like to).
Have you made any more progress with The Eagle of the Ninth? I know it's probably the most talked about Sutcliff, but I wouldn't count it as a favourite, so I understand it falling to the side a bit.
When you read her, what do you think of Ngaio Marsh? I've heard good things about her, but I disliked the one book of hers I read so much that I haven't wanted to read anything else by her.

I'm currently in the middle of five books, but three of them are either being read as part of a group or alongside someone else, so I'm really only reading two books, right? I'm into the third part of The Lays of Beleriand by J.R.R. Tolkien and am enjoying The Lay of Lethian far more than The Lay of the Children of Hurin.
I'm also reading The Island of Sheep by John Buchan (finally finishing the Hannay sequence!) and have come to the realisation that Buchan really shines for me at writing comedy and his serious moments, and I'm generally not that keen on his suspense/thriller scenes.