Booking Through Thursday: Books vs Movies

Considering that my blog is meant to be about both books and movies, I thought this week would be a good time to join in with Booking Through Thursday again. The question is:

Books and films both tell stories, but what we want from a book can be different from what we want from a movie. Is this true for you? If so, what’s the difference between a book and a movie?

I want both books and movies to entertain me and/or to make me think. Depends on my mood. :-) No matter what mood I'm in though, I love when books and movies involve me in such a way that I lose myself in the story they're telling and nothing else exists.

I suppose it boils down to emotion - I expect both the words of a book and the images of a movie to convey emotion so that I can feel it too. I think directing a movie is just as much of an art form as writing is. You can definitely spot the good directors out there.

I must admit that these days the movies I tend to watch are light - so at the moment I expect books to make me think, but I expect movies to only entertain me and help me forget about the day's troubles. I'm avoiding the more serious movies for now!

Booking Through Thursday - Cover Up

It's Friday already, but I didn't have much spare time yesterday so I'm only getting to this now. The question is:

While acknowledging that we can’t judge books by their covers, how much does the design of a book affect your reading enjoyment? Hardcover vs. softcover? Trade paperback vs. mass market paperback? Font? Illustrations? Etc.?

If I don't know anything about a book, I do judge it by its cover. If the cover is interesting, I'll pick it up and read the book. I judge them by titles too though, so if the cover is horrible but the title sounds interesting, I'll also pick it up.

But none of these things influence my enjoyment of the book itself. I won't buy a book if the font is tiny, I'll look for another edition if I really want it though. I don't mind if it's a paperback of hardcover - I buy mostly paperbacks, but most of the books at the local library are hardcover so I read both. I don't mind if it has illustrations or not - except for history books. I prefer history-related books that have maps and illustrations, otherwise it can be quite difficult to visualise what's happenening.

As long as it looks like a book I'll read it - I don't enjoy reading things printed off the internet and such, but as far as books go I'm pretty easy!

Playing Editor - Booking Through Thursday

This week, we are asked to fill in the blanks in:


_____would have been a much better book if ____.

Hmmm... I'm not sure I read a book I wanted to change in quite a while. If I had to, I'd say that

Children of Men would have been a much better book if it belonged to a different genre. What I mean is that it was SUCH a good story idea that I think it would have been better developed as a 'regular' character-focused novel rather than a thriller. I think much more could have been done with the idea.

I really can't think of anything else. I don't have the reflex to want to change storylines, I kind of just go with the flow.

Hero - Booking Through Thursday

This week's question: Who is your favorite Male lead character? And why?

I'm trying very hard to answer this before I read anyone else's answers... so as not to be swayed!

I have to admit that I'm more partial to female lead characters and don't have many male ones that I've been impressed by. I guess it's an identification thing, I often find male characters amusing or cool or "good people" but they don't stick with me like the female ones do.

Except for Henry from Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller's Wife. I loved Henry. I remember dreaming about him, thinking about him and generally giving him room in my head as if he were real. I loved the book he was in, the story and the writing, but also his character in itself. He was strong when faced with a very strange problem. He tried to be strong for Claire when she needed him to be. He tried to shield her. He tried to be responsible during the times when the age difference between them was really big. I found him to be both sensitive and strong, which is a combination hard for me to resist in a man. He was very real to me and I felt a huge loss when the book ended.

I'm all emotional now!

Heroine - Booking Through Thursday

Who is your favorite female lead character? And why? (And yes, of course, you can name more than one . . . I always have trouble narrowing down these things to one name, why should I force you to?)

I can't believe I'm capable of choosing just one. It came to me immediately - Anne of Green Gables. I love the books, I love the films, I love her. I read all the books (I can't remember how many there are, but they go until Anne has a family of her own) - I remember I got the whole set in Polish for my Name Day when I was 12 or 13.

Anne is a brilliant heroine. She's spunky and strong and fun and sentimental and a total dreamer. She messes up a lot, but in the end finds her way. I like that she didn't lose her character when she grew up - she changed of course, she wasn't a kid anymore, but you could always see where she came from.

I wanted to be Anne. I wanted to live on Prince Edward Island - to go there is still one of my biggest dreams, one that will hopefully come true soon. I wanted to have her courage, her strong will. I find it funny that to this day, after so many books read, Anne has not been replaced in my heart. She's my ultimate female heroine.

Format - Booking Through Thursday

This week's question is:

All other things (like price and storage space) being equal, given a choice in a perfect world, would you rather have paperbacks in your library? Or hardcovers? And why?

This one's easy - paperbacks! For one thing, I don't like actually reading hardcovers because they're too big and heavy. And they won't fit in my handbag. I have a few hardbacks, but only really thick books so that they don't fall apart on me.

Plus, I don't know, if I try to imagine a library in my house having only hardcovers, in my head it looks kinda... stuffy. I guess paperbacks are just more 'me'.

I'd make an exception if I could have a magic library like Trish thought up - I don't think I'd be able to resist something like that!

But, Enough About Books...

I discovered Booking through Thursday, this week! I'm really excited! Here's this week's question:

Okay, even I can’t read ALL the time, so I’m guessing that you folks might voluntarily shut the covers from time to time as well… What else do you do with your leisure to pass the time? Walk the dog? Knit? Run marathons? Construct grandfather clocks? Collect eggshells?

Well, since this blog is about books AND movies, I guess I can say I also watch films. I must admit that after a long day usually I'd rather put on a dvd rather than read a book. Good thing I like them then, I guess!

I'm also involved in the local theatre/musical scene so I'm usually rehearsing for something. Right now it's the musical A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum, which will be staged at the end of May. I just found out a few days ago that I got into the chorus and I'm really psyched - there was a lot of competition!

I sing with a small vocal group called Hot Air too. We do all sorts of songs, from jazz and gospel to pop and classical. Right now we're rehearsing an Abba medley!

All this means that I have to spend a lot of time learning my music at home...

I also love to cook - when I started this blog (only a couple of weeks ago!), I also started another about cooking and food - Lost in the Kitchen. I hope that it will put some method to the general madness.

I take a tap class and a modern jazz class once a week.

That probably covers a lot of it, although I do try to do other stuff too - like see friends! I love doing all this other stuff too, but I always wish I had more time to read... I only read one book in January (!) and I haven't completed one in February yet (although I'm close to finishing P.D. James' "The Children of Men" - it's really good and I'm looking forward to watching the movie too!). I guess there will never be enough time for everything we want to do...