Top Ten Tuesday: Great Posters For Books Made Into Movies

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This week is technically supposed to be a cover freebie, but honestly I am not huge into book covers. So I'm doing a little twist on it: I'd originally thought of highlighting books that get new covers when a movie is released and the best or worst of those, but instead, I'm just going to do the posters for the movies themselves! I have either seen the movies or read the books (mostly both) for every one of these.

The Silence of the Lambs



Breakfast at Tiffany's



Gone With The Wind



The Godfather



Apocalypse Now (Heart of Darkness)



Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep)



Rosemary's Baby



Perfume



The Exorcist



A Clockwork Orange

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Top Ten Tuesday: Great Posters For Books Made Into Movies

Book 228: Rosemary's Baby

"Now, looking back over the past weeks and months, she felt a disturbing presence of overlooked signals just beyond memory, signals of a shortcoming in his love for her, of a disparity between what he said and what he felt. He was an actor; could anyone know when an actor was true and not acting?"

Dates read: April 24-27, 2018

Rating: 5/10

I remember, when I first learned about how babies are made (not the sex part, the pregnancy part), my overwhelming impression was that it sounded like being the host for a parasite. Before it can survive outside of you, it's just hooked up to your insides, taking your nutrients and calories. And while modern-day ultrasound technology is giving us ever-clearer ideas of what exactly is going on in there, for the most part it's hidden from view. You feel kicks and punches and the call is coming from inside the house! Yes, yes, it's the miracle of life and all that, but there's something just kind of fundamentally weird about it.

I'm not the only one who thinks so, the phrase "body horror of pregnancy" brings up plenty of Google results. If you were to ever ask anyone if they can think of a piece of pop culture about it, the answer you'd probably hear is Rosemary's Baby. Most people would mean the Polanski film, but that cinema classic (one of the few horror movies even I enjoy!) was based on Ira Levin's original novel. It's almost a novella...it's quite short. It tells the story of young newlywed Rosemary Woodhouse, who begins the story by moving into an exclusive Manhattan apartment building with her up-and-coming actor husband, Guy. A friend from her time in the workforce tries to warn her about the bad reputation the place has, but the couple is excited and moves in anyways.

Rosemary, estranged from her own Midwestern family, is eager to have a child, but Guy is hesitant until he starts spending time around the Castevets, their elderly next-door neighbors, and he gets a promising role when the originally-cast actor is struck blind. The night they conceive, Rosemary's drink is spiked and while she remembers an oddly demonic evening, Guy claims nothing odd happened. She's steered away from her first choice of doctor to one the Castevets prefer, who counsels her to not talk about how her pregnancy is going with her friends. After months of agonizing pain (and daily nutritional drinks provided by the Castevets), Rosemary complains to a friend, who starts looking into what could be wrong. He's struck down suddenly, and his last message to Rosemary is a warning about her new friends. Heavily pregnant and with no one to turn to, Rosemary is suddenly terrified about what exactly she's going to be giving birth to.

What came through the most strongly to me, from today's perspective, is a warning about how abusers work. Rosemary is cut off from her family, from the doctor she wants to go to, from her friends and a community of women who would be able to tell her that her experiences aren't normal. Her husband and neighbors do all of it cheerfully, in the guise of caring about her, but they're really isolating her so they can better control her. It's incremental enough that she barely even notices the noose tightening around her until it's too late. That, as much as the reality that you have no idea what your baby is going to be like until it comes out, is the horror.

Honestly, this is a situation where the movie is better. The book isn't bad, but it's unspectacular. None of the characters is all that compelling, the dialogue doesn't spark, the prose is unremarkable. The performances (particularly Mia Farrow) and atmosphere Polanski was able to render on film flesh out the bones of the interesting idea Levin's work presents and explores. The book on its own isn't unworth your time, particularly because it's so short, but its not anything special.

One year ago, I was reading: The Last Romantics

Two years ago, I was reading: Silent Spring

Three years ago, I was reading: Big Little Lies

Four years ago, I was reading: And After Many Days

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Book 228: Rosemary's Baby

A Month In The Life: April 2018

Another slow month, another bumper crop of books. This spring has been so hot-and-cold (literally!) with the weather, with a 70 degree day followed by snow and a high in the lower 40s, that it's seemed safer to just plan to stay in and get cozy. I've come to a place where I feel content mostly staying in and lazing around if there's nothing particularly compelling going on and if this is what being in your 30s means I am HERE for it.


In Books...

• Freedom: Jonathan Franzen as a person is not my cup of tea, but damn the man can write. I will say, though, for all his skill in telling this story of a Midwestern family under strain, I thought the undercurrent of misanthropy generally, and misogyny in particular, detracted from the merits of the book. 
• Sophia of Silicon Valley: This book is really bad, you guys. Billed as a The Devil Wears Prada for the tech scene, it's more than anything a fawning paean to Steve Jobs...or, as she unimaginatively dubs his stand-in, "Scott Kraft". It has no wit or charm, the titular heroine is grating (as is virtually everyone else in the book), and there's no dramatic tension in the plot. I hated it so much.
• Outline: The prose is top-notch, but I was left unmoved by this book. It's structurally nontraditional (the recounting of ten conversations by the narrator, a recently divorced mother-of-two who goes to Athens to teach writing for a week) in a way that I could intellectually appreciate but didn't actually work for me.
• Silent Spring: This book made such an impact when it was published that it led to the creation of the EPA, and after reading it, it's easy to understand why. Carson conveys alarming scientific information in a straightforward, engaged way that gets under your skin. It gets a bit repetitive after a while, but it's a powerful message.
• The Color of Water: James McBride tells the story of his childhood, and the extraordinary woman who raised him...born in Poland as Ruchel Zylska, the daughter of an Orthodox rabbi became Ruth McBride Jordan, who married a black man and founded a church with him, had eight children, and then after his death married again and had another four, all of whom graduated from college despite the family's poverty. McBride parallels his own childhood with what he later came to know of his mother's with skill and affection. 
• Sex at Dawn: An interesting re-examination of the conventional wisdom of evolutionary psychology as it relates to mating behavior...what if what we think we know about men being "designed" to want one faithful woman to ensure that they're raising only their own offspring, and women being "designed" to want a man who won't become emotionally involved with another woman who will pose a threat to the resources she needs to raise her children was wrong? It probably is, according to this thorough analysis, which raises powerful questions.
• Chosen Country: Public lands are a huge issue in the West in a way I never realized until I moved out here. So I was interested in this book about the takeover of that wildlife refuge in Oregon a few years back by a reporter who was there, but honestly his best work on this has already been published and got expanded to book length by the addition of more information about him and his personal life than I was interested in. It's not bad, but it's not organized especially well or very comprehensive. 
• The Kingmaker's Daughter: After four non-fiction reads in a row, this fourth entry in Philippa Gregory's The Cousin's War series hit the spot. Her brand of historical fiction tends to be heavier on the fiction than the history, but she's good at finding a compelling hook into the lives of royal women (this time, Anne Neville, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, who reigned as Richard III's queen) and I enjoy her work. 
• Rosemary's Baby: I've seen the movie, and honestly now that I have I think maybe I prefer it to the book? The book isn't bad, it's a short, relatively light horror novel that plays on the fears related to pregnancy and powerfully demonstrates the insidious way women can be manipulated through isolation. But the movie is SO good that the book doesn't quite measure up.

In Life...

• Not a lot! Did our taxes, went out to dinner with friends to see two of them off as they move to Seattle, did some planning for girls trip late this year, thought about some long weekends we'd like to take this year...this was a low-key kind of month.

One Thing:

I quite liked both of her first two albums, but Kacey Musgraves' latest release, Golden Hour, is truly wonderful. Her vocals and songwriting recall classic, traditional country a la Patsy Cline, but her production pushes the boundaries of the genre in a way that makes for absolutely magical listening. Even if you don't think you like "country music", I'd recommend turning it on and letting it play a little. It might surprise you.

Gratuitous Pug Photo:

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A Month In The Life: April 2018

Top Ten Tuesday: Books On My Spring TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This week, we're looking at our current TBR, so here are the next ten books I'm planning on reading this spring! As always, book club selections will be added in here, but here's what's on the horizon as I know it so far.

Possession: Booker Prize winner! This is a prize I've had a pretty good history with, so I'm gradually trying to get through all of them.

Of Human Bondage: Although my big bulk of classics reading happened a few years ago (before I started the blog), I've still got ones I'm working through. I'm expecting this to take a while because it's quite long.

Sophia of Silicon Valley: I'm hoping this tale of Bay Area workplace b.s. is more like The Devil Wears Prada (which I really liked) and less like The Nanny Diaries (which I didn't really care for), but I'll have to read it to see!

Freedom: Obligatory Franzen? Honestly, I thought The Corrections was really good and am interested in his follow up. It's gotten recommended to me a couple times too.

Silent Spring: As far as I've been told, this book made an actual difference when it came to public awareness of the dangers of pollution, so I've been wanting to read it.

The Color of Water: I've seen this pop up on a couple of lists about interesting writing about race in America, and I haven't read a lot from a bi-racial perspective, so this seemed like a solid choice.

Sex at Dawn: I really enjoy (and recommend!) a podcast called The Psychology of Attractiveness, which is about, well, attractiveness and mating behavior. This book deals with similar issues and it's been well-reviewed.

Chosen Country: Ever since I moved out west, I've found myself more interested in the kind of regional mindset that plays out here, which shouldn't come as a surprise. This is about the standoff at the wildlife refuge in Oregon a few years back, and the factors that played into it, so it's right up my alley.

The Kingmaker's Daughter: The next book in Phillipa Gregory's The Cousin's War series. After a weak initial volume, I've mostly enjoyed these. Nothing wrong with a little fluff.

Rosemary's Baby: Horror classic! I really liked The Stepford Wives, and I liked the movie, so I'm hoping this book works as well for me.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books On My Spring TBR