Book / film comparisons are one of my favourite obsessions, so I enjoyed this entertaining dive into the subject. I’ve spent many, many hours reading books, watching the film adaptations, and writing about them in a long-running series of ‘film of the book’ blog posts and in a collection of essays I published, which makes me the ideal reader for this book.

With an irreverent, opinionated and friendly writing tone, the author explores films from a variety of genres, illustrating her points with quotes from authors, critics, producers and film dialogue. The book did seem a little on the short side, with many films given passing mentions and throwaway comments, so I would have liked it to be more detailed. It was an interesting read which discussed topics such as why Austen is adapted so often, whether certain books are really ‘unfilmable’ and the social values of the past which affected the adaptations. I did not always agree with the opinions; for example, I don’t care that the Scouring of the Shire wasn’t in the LOTR films and I think the book of The Exorcist was better than the film. Mostly I did agree; the Netflix version of Persuasion is dreadful, most adaptations of children’s books aren’t satisfactory, Daphne du Maurier’s stories make great films, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula is indeed terrible.

I was unfamiliar with some of the books and films, but it was sometimes interesting to learn about them even if I’ll never read or watch them. I even learned of some films which few people realise were based on books. There was a last chapter on Christmas films, which I skimmed over because it wasn’t exactly seasonal when I read it in July! In a book such as this one, the books and films examined are personal preference, so I appreciated that the author chose the material she had the strongest feelings about. This means that many famous great film adaptations, and many bad ones, do not get a mention. In summary, if you’re a ‘film of the book’ obsessive, you’ll enjoy this!

Thank you to the publisher Oneworld for the review copy via NetGalley. The book is out on 1st October.