I'm putting together a snazzy little display of books that were adapted for the screen at my library, and have come upon quite a number of titles that I never knew existed in book form.While none of these titles will strike you as the least bit obscure, some of their original authors might. And while a couple of these don't meet the Zombie Summer Reading Program "40 years old" rule, I was just so darn startled to find them that I felt compelled to share.
Rashomon by Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1952)
The Asphalt Jungle by W.R. Burnett (1949)
Johnny Guitar by Roy Chanslor (1953)
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (originally published in German, 1979)
Wild At Heart by Barry Gifford (1990)
Midnight Cowboy by James Herlihy (1965)
MASH by Richard Hooker (1968)
The Blackboard Jungle by Evan Hunter (1954)
The Searchers by Alan LeMay (1954)
The Graduate by Charles Webb (1963)
I'm so reading Wild At Heart. And upon further reflection, I admit that it was never cool to like Atreyu.
3 comments:
You might check out Vera Caspary's novel of "Laura," which was the basis for the movie. I've never run into another person who's read it, but I think it's pretty decent.
I used to always recommend The Neverending Story to people when I worked at bookstores. I love the movie, but the book is far better!
I just got a bunch of very old L.M. Montgomery books that were my grandmothers (not part of the Anne series)-- do they count as Zombie Summer Reads?
I did find Laura while making my display list, but am holding off because *gasp* I haven't seen the movie yet. Now, I've ordered it from Netflix several times, but Potts never wants to watch it with me.
As for L.M. Montgomery, my first thought was "Oh, everybody knows who she is." Then it occurred to me that she's kind of like the Dexys Midnight Runners of children's literature - which makes her kind of a perfect Zombie author.
She wrote a million books and I don't even know what happens in the Anne of Green Gables sequels.
Also, I'm curious because when I was little, we'd get books as prizes for memorizing a certain number of bible verses in Sunday school. And Montgomery's Emily series was always among our dusty choices. They looked reeeaaaallly prissy. Like, if Montgomery let Diana narrate.
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