"We'll Always Have Casablanca" by Noah Isenberg

I really love learning about the creative process.  Whether it is how someone writes and edits their book, how movies are made, how songs get written -- it all fascinates me.  Especially if I am familiar with the creative work in question.  So about 3/4 of this book absolutely fascinated me.  Isenberg has meticulously put together a behind-the-scenes look at how Casablanca (1942) came to be, from the writing of the stage play Everybody Comes to Rick's through the post-production editing and scoring for the film.  

I think the coolest thing I learned from this book was that almost everyone involved, aside from Humphrey Bogart and a handful of other actors and crewmembers, were actually pretty recent immigrants to Hollywood from Europe.  Many of them experienced the kind of refugee situation that is shown in the film, waiting desperately for an exit visa and hoping against hope to make it safely out of Europe before the Nazis completely overwhelmed everything and everyone.  That is going to make this film extra poignant the next time I watch it.  I had realized that, obviously, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid and Peter Lorre were European and had probably come to Hollywood in part to escape the Nazi threat.  But even director Michael Curtiz was originally Hungarian, and the actors playing the Nazis in the film were mostly native Germans who had fled Germany.  Making this pro-freedom film must have been so immensely satisfying for so many involved, and yet heartbreakingly real, too.

The last couple chapters are about how the movie has influenced Hollywood and society, and I mainly skimmed those.

Anyway, if you like learning about how movies get made, this is a cool book.  For adults.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: R for discussions of sexual topics, mainly things that couldn't be shown in the film, but also sections from fairly explicit sequels that have been written over the years by people who want to fill in the things the movie only hints at or leaves open to interpretation.  You can skim those bits, but they aren't always easy to spot coming.

"Shane" by Jack Schaefer (yet again)

Some fictional characters take up residence inside your heart in a quiet, calm, yet confident way, and you can't imagine life without them there anymore.  Shane is one of those, for me.  But not only Shane -- Joe and Marian and Bobby Starrett too.  The whole family of four are so, so dear to me.

This book never ceases to fascinate me.  How Shane rides onto the Starrett family farm one day, just asking for water for himself and his horse, ready to move on through again once he's refreshed.  Accepting a simple offer of hospitality, then another, then another, then taking on a job he never would have dreamed of doing before, and never would have done if it hadn't been Joe Starrett who offered it to him.  The sophisticated gunman becomes a farmer.  The aloof loner joins a family in the most integral way possible without actually becoming physically intimate with any of the family members.  He simply... becomes one of them.  Belongs to them, as the narrator remembers thinking at the time.  He adopts them, they adopt him, and he's theirs as much as they're his.

At the end, it's Shane who has to sever those ties, cut himself loose from his family so he can become the lone gunman again.  Not because he no longer loves his family, but because he loves them so much, he can't possibly do anything else.  Because greater love hath no man than this: that he would lay down his life for his friend.  And Shane loves the Starretts, as surely as they love him.  Just as surely as I love all four of them.

(From my Instagram)

On the surface, it's just another story of small farmers versus a big rancher.  The big ranges slowly gave way to small ranches and farms all across the West in real life, and that metamorphosis was often painful and brutal and violent.  Shane elevates this time-worn tale by giving us heroic men and women who are straight and true and upright and clean... but not perfect.  

Over the past seven years, this story has climbed higher and higher on my favorite books list -- going from somewhere down near fifty up to rest inside my top ten even as its characters nestle a little deeper into my heart with every reread.  It's a jewel-perfect book, pacing and characters and plot and description all polished and shining and brilliant.  The 1953 movie version starring Alan Ladd as Shane is equally wonderful, and it has climbed higher and higher on my favorite movies list over the years too.

I read the Critical Edition this time, but didn't read all the essays at the end.  Yet.  I read the introductory matter, and I'm saving the other material to enjoy now and again, adding one or two to each of my future rereads of the book so I can make them last a long time.

Particularly Good Bits:

Something in father, something not of words or of actions but of the essential substance of the human spirit, had reached out and spoken to him and he had replied to it and had unlocked a part of himself to us (p. 113-114).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some old-fashioned cussing and western violence.

"Mary Poppins" by P. L. Travers

I liked this book SO MUCH BETTER than I did when I was a kid!  I read two or three of the original Mary Poppins books by P. L. Travers when I was young, and I just didn't find them very fun.  And I found parts of them downright creepy.  Or bizarre.  Or dark and weird.  I much preferred the Disney movie.

Don't get me wrong -- I still love the Disney movie.  But this book makes me laugh aloud multiple times now!  I used to think Mary Poppins in the book was kind of mean, and she IS much sterner and less cuddly than Mary Poppins in the movie.  But now, as an adult, I just see her as a woman tasked with caring for other people's children who has no use for fools and no time to waste.  She's not mean, she's just busy and tired.  And funny, but not in a way that kids would get.

I also love how you can kind of read the magical parts of this book two ways.  You can take them the way Disney does -- as magical events caused by a magical person.  Or you can take them as adding imagination and wishing to ordinary events.  Do they all really have a tea party floating in the air, or did they just have so much fun laughing and telling jokes and laughing some more that they felt like they were floating?  Did Mary Poppins and her friend Bert really jump through a painting and have a free picnic in Fairyland?  Or did they make up a fun "pretend we're doing that" story together because neither of them had enough spare money to go have tea in a shop?  That absolutely fascinated me, and I LOVED IT.

Particularly Good Bits:

"Don't you know," she said pityingly, "that everybody's got a Fairyland of their own?" (p. 32).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG because that part where Mrs. Corry snaps off her fingers and feeds them to children is really creepy, even if you tell yourself she's pretending to do it and giving them cookies instead.

This is my fiftieth book read and reviewed for my third Classics Club list!!!  I am finished again!!!  Look for a wrap-up post about that soon.

"Ophelia" by Lisa Klein

I read this book about ten years ago, and I really enjoyed it then, so I was excited when it got made into a movie a few years later.  I very much like the movie as well, so I'm glad I had a chance to reread the book.  It's just as good as I remembered!  Such an intriguing take on Hamlet, not only because it's told through Ophelia's eyes instead, but because Lisa Klein weaves aspects of a couple other Shakespeare plays into it too.

In Ophelia, we get to see the title character growing up alongside her brother and interacting with Prince Hamlet more and more as they grow older.  Klein gives them a sweet and tender love story, then shows us how Hamlet's desire for vengeance grows into a kind of madness that eventually wrecks everyone around him, including his secret wife, Ophelia.

Yes, we get a secret marriage between Hamlet and Ophelia in this book, which I find completely fitting.  Everything Klein writes works well with Shakespeare's play as we know it, but with the camera pointed a different direction, rather like the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard.  But in a much less wacky and silly way.  Even the way that Klein twists the ending of her book works with the original play while pulling in elements of other tragedies.

If you like viewing classic stories from a different angle, if you're a Hamlet or Shakespeare fan, or if you just like stories of strong, yet sweet and loving women, I definitely recommend this book.

(From my Instagram account)

Particularly Good Bits:

I could not make sense of this Janus-faced husband who spoke false and true at once (p. 152).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for a non-steamy and obliquely described love scene, an attempted sexual assault, crude humor, suggestive dialog, and discussions of things like menarche and childbirth.

"In the Heat of the Night" by John Dudley Ball

I've been a fan of the 1967 movie In the Heat of the Night for almost two decades now, but it only recently occurred to me to find and read the book it's based on.  So, I did.  And now, I can say with confidence that if Ball's other Virgil Tibbs are anything like this, I have some really enjoyable reads ahead of me.

It's interesting that this book, which was published in 1965, has a very different tone from the movie.  The movie is dark and gritty and sweaty and determined not to let any characters come off looking totally good, not even Virgil Tibbs.

The book takes a different approach, with less overt racial hostility between the black cop and the white police chief he's trying to help solve a murder in the South.  The racism here is less loud and obvious than in the movie, but it's also more insidious.  Instead of most of the characters instantly jumping to bigoted conclusions about Virgil Tibbs the way they do in the movie, they think they're being very magnanimous and kind and "big" toward him by letting him sit in the front seats of their cars and eat sandwiches in the same room with them.  They believe that they're not behaving in a racist way at all toward him, but only because he's special -- he's educated and smart, and not from around there.

Slowly and gradually, both Chief Gillespie and beat cop Sam Wood start to realize that their long-held ideas about black people and white people are getting challenged and need changing.  I think this is a really effective approach for the book, because a lot of white readers in 1965 would probably have just put this down after a couple chapters if it had been as swift to make them realize they look bad as they are in the movie.  By gradually opening the characters' eyes instead, Ball lets them gently change minds for readers too.  The movie could hit harder and faster, because it was made in a time when people HAD to go to the movie theater to see it and would be less likely to walk out of a movie they'd paid money for, rather than put down a book or hurl it across the room.

The basic plot is the same:  Someone murders a wealthy man from out of town who was planning to bring a lot of business to the little Southern town.  The cops pull in a black man, Virgil Tibbs, who was waiting for a train in the middle of the night, assuming he must be the killer.  But it turns out he's actually a policeman too -- and not just a policeman, but a homicide detective.  Under orders from his boss to help solve this case, Tibbs figures everything out several steps ahead of the small-town cops.

I think Tibbs gets a better character arc in the movie, as he also learns to let go of some racially-charged opinions, and that doesn't happen so much here.  He's also more obviously the main character in that.  Here, there's not a clear main character, though my money would probably be on Sam Wood for that, as he has the clearest character arc, and the book begins with him and shares a lot of his thoughts throughout the story.

Particularly Good Bits:

Above the grill the black stain of hot grease vapor made a permanent monument to thousands of short orders that had been cooked, eaten, and forgotten (p. 4).

Gillespie used his eyebrows for question marks (p. 101).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: R for bad language, racist slurs, descriptions of a naked woman, discussion of a teenage pregnancy, mention of abortion, and a little violence.  It's about on par with the movie, except a bit less violent.

This has been my 42nd book read and reviewed for my third Classics Club list, and my 22nd book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2022.

"The Greatest Gift" by Philip Van Doren Stern

I've seen It's a Wonderful Life (1946) dozens of times.  I remember first seeing it at my grandparents' house in July when I was probably eleven or twelve.  My aunt found out we had never seen it and insisted on loaning us her copy so we could rectify that omission in our cultural education.  I've been a fan ever since.

But I'd never read the short story it's based on, until now.  Isn't that silly of me?  I must admit I've been a bit hesitant to read it because... what if it wasn't as wonderful as the movie?

Well, it's not.  But how could it be?  It's a Wonderful Life is one of those jewel-perfect movies where nothing could possibly have improved it.  However, the short story is heartwarming and cozy, and it has the same basic message: that each life impacts every life that touches it, and the lack of one person can make a huge difference in the lives of many.  It reminds me a lot of John Donne's famous statement about no man being an island.

The copy I have also contains a history of how Van Doren Stern wrote the short story and its twisting road to moviedom.  He woke up with the whole story in his head one morning, wrote it out, revised it many times, tried to get it published many times, but had no luck. Finally, he had it printed up in a little booklet at his own expense and gave it to friends and family as a Christmas card.  One of those found its way to Frank Capra, freshly back from WWII and looking for his next movie idea.  He called James Stewart, also just discharged from the Air Force, told him the idea, and James Stewart basically insisted they make it together because he loved the idea so much.

The movie does a better job of fleshing out the characters and their lives, so if you have neither read this short story nor seen the movie, I do recommend the movie over the story.  But if you already know the movie, the short story is really lovely because you can kind of trace how the germs of the various ideas and scenes are there, but got expanded and rounded out for the movie.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG because it does open with George Bailey contemplating suicide, though it does not go nearly as dark as the movie does.

This has been my first entry into the It's a Wonderful Life Blogathon hosted by Classic Movie Muse.  Check out her master list for everyone's entries!

This is also my 47th book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2021.

"The Glass Key" by Dashiell Hammett

The first time I read this book, fifteenish years ago, I had no real idea who Alan Ladd was.  I definitely had not seen the 1942 version of The Glass Key that starred him opposite Veronica Lake and Brian Donlevy.  Not even once.  Cut to 2021, when I've seen it probably five or six times, and that makes this reading experience totally different from that first one.

One of the best parts of this reread was how it cleared up a few things about Ladd's performance in the movie version for me!  I've always been a little bugged by certain expressions Ladd uses as Ned Beaumont because they don't seem natural to him.  In particular, he does these weird smiles where his lips are pulled tight against his teeth so he looks more like he's grimacing that smiling.  I had always chalked this up to Ladd being nervous because this was his first big hero role after he gained fame playing the sympathetic villain in This Gun for Hire (1942).  But now, I don't think that was it at all!

I think Alan Ladd read this book when he got cast in the movie version.  Because Hammett is very explicit about exactly what sort of smile Beaumont is doing at any given moment, whether it's a friendly smile, a genuine and boyish smile, or a controlled and fake smile... with his lips pulled tightly against his teeth.  I think Ladd was trying to draw on the source material and, if you have read the book, you'll realize that's what he's doing.  But, if you haven't, it just looks like he is really uncomfortable in a lot of scenes.  Which, actually, his character does tend to be, so it does kinda work.  But it works better now that I've read the book and then rewatched the movie right after.

ANYWAY, this book focuses on Ned Beaumont (renamed Ed for the movie because whyyyy?), right-hand-man of a political fixer who falls in love with a senator's daughter and decides to put all his political power behind this senator.  The senator's daughter can't stand him, but plays nice so he'll keep helping her dad.  And then her brother gets murdered.  Everyone assumes the fixer did it, but his power keeps him from getting arrested for it because he's in control of the District Attorney and so on.  Ned Beaumont tries to figure out who did kill the senator's son, if his boss didn't, and a lot of violence and excitement ensue.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for violence, including a pretty extreme beating, and contemplations of suicide.  Also some bad language, lots of alcohol use, smoking, etc.  I did mention this is hardboiled detective fiction, right?

This is the 30th book I've read and reviewed for my third Classics Club list and the second book I read for the #AMonthOfMystery challenge on Instagram.

"I'm Your Huckleberry" by Val Kilmer

I picked this book up at the bookstore on an absolute whim.  I didn't even know he'd written a book! But it's not shocking that it would catch my eye, since Val Kilmer has long been one of my favorite actors.  I've always thought of him as off-kilter, extremely intelligent, and funny, so I figured his book might be similar.

I was totally right.  This doesn't feel like a memoir so much as spending a couple of days listening to Kilmer reminisce about his family, his career, and his love life.  Happily, he never goes into any kind of racy details about that last item.  He never says mean or snide things about any of the women he dated, or his ex-wife Joanne Whalley.  He's remarkably gentlemanly, in fact.  You get the idea that he is dazzled by women, but has no real idea what they want or need out of life or a man.  Which was kind of fascinating, in a somewhat sad way.

I was really happy that most of the book was a sort of behind-the-scenes tour of many of his famous movies, because that's what I wanted the most from it.  And he definitely delivered.  I think the only movie of his that I love that he didn't cover at all here is Spartan (2004).  So that was immensely satisfying.  Do I wish he would have delved more deeply into a few of them?  Yes.  But what is here is very fun.  And I got to learn some of his thoughts on Hamlet and what it was like to play the title character onstage, which you know thrilled me.

Val Kilmer was raised a Christian Scientist, and he talks a LOT about his particular religious beliefs in this book.  They're a little peculiar, to me, but I definitely respect his commitment to serving his fellow humans with love and compassion and generosity.  He also explains his battle with throat cancer and his struggle to discover a new way of acting now that his golden voice is gone.

Particularly Good Bits:

When you dream dreams when you're young, do them before you have a reason not to.  When you are young, that is when all the dreams come true (p. 94).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-16 for some veiled references to sex, discussions of drug and alcohol use, and the very sad story of his youngest brother's drowning.

This was my 32nd book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2021.

"Hercule Poirot's Christmas" by Agatha Christie

I have discovered a newfound appreciation for Hercule Poirot over the last couple years.  I entirely blame Kenneth Branagh and his 2017 adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express.  

I read almost this whole book yesterday, and it was great fun!  I mean, great fun considering it's a book about a severely dysfunctional family and murder and so on.

Poirot isn't even in the first third or so of this book, which is all about this old man and his children, most of whom hate each other.  The old man gets killed, Poirot and some British policemen get called in to solve the crime, and the rest of the book is about that.

This was a fast read, and I'm happy to say I did not solve the crime before the hero did, which is the sort of mystery I like best.

Particularly Good Bits: 

"I believe the present matters -- not the past!  The past must go.  If we seek to keep the past alive, we end, I think, by distorting it.  We see it in exaggerated terms -- a false perspective" (p. 33).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for a lot of talk about a man having illegitimate children through his many love affairs, and a pretty gory murder.

This was my 4th book read and reviewed for the Literary Christmas reading link-up hosted by In the Bookcase, my 13th for my third Classics Club list, and my 51st for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.

"Wade McClusky and the Battle of Midway" by David Rigby

This was a very cool book, especially since I love the new Midway (2019) movie so much.  This book really helped round out Wade McClusky as portrayed by Luke Evans in the movie and let me understand even better the pivotal part he played in winning the Battle of Midway during WWII.

Although the book title would suggest that this focuses solely on his role in that particular battle, it's actually a full biography of McClusky, going from his boyhood through his early naval career, and continuing on past the war into his retirement and eventual death.  But the bulk of the book does involve that particular battle and all the factors that went into how it played out.

My one quibble with this book is that it got a little repetitive with its insistence that McClusky has been misrepresented and even somewhat slandered in other accounts of the Battle of Midway.  I understand that Rigby was trying to set the record straight and show how heroic and pivotal McClusky's role in that battle was, and I agree it's important that it be understood aright.  But I feel like he belabored the wrongness of other historians and authors more than was necessary, rather than letting the truth speak for him.  There came a point when I would skim any paragraphs that dealt with pointing out the flaws in other accounts of the battle or reports of McClusky's behavior in it because it was kind of the same thing again and again after a while.  It started to feel more like a defense attorney was writing this, or a religious apologetics professor, rather than a historian and biographer.  

But I enjoyed this book overall, and I learned a great deal about Midway and the US Navy's aviation program and presence in WWII as a whole, which was really cool.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some war-related accounts of violence and danger.  No cussing that I can recall.

Luke Evans really doesn't look anything like the real Wade McClusky, but he did such a marvelous job of portraying his quiet, calm, detail-oriented, attentive, steady leadership.  Though I suppose I might be biased, being an Evans fan already.  If it hadn't been for him talking about this movie on his social media accounts, though, I might never have gone to see the movie at all, which would have been a tragedy!  Because it has become one of my absolute favorite movies ever!

This is my 13th book read for #TheUnreadshelfProject2020.

"The Princess Bride" by William Goldman (again)

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned here before that I teach literature and creative writing to some of my homeschooled nieces and nephews for high school.  I teach them over the internet because they live so far away, and I love it.  I'm working on converting our studies together into a format I could share with other parents too, so watch the "Lit and Writing Resources for Homeschoolers" page here on this blog for that to show up this spring.

Anyway!  This year, I'm teaching a nephew who is in tenth grade.  He's good friends with my son, who is in sixth grade, but who reads like a high-schooler as long as the subject matter isn't too intense for him.  So my son has been doing the same lit course with my nephew, which lets them discuss books together instead of it just being me and the nephew, and gives them stuff to talk about when they're together once a year too.  (We started this last year when my nephew asked to read The Lord of the Rings for lit, and my son had been begging to read that too, and they asked if they could read it together, and I said yes, and they had so much fun doing so that they wanted to continue studying together.)

This month, we spent two weeks reading and discussing The Princess Bride by William Goldman.  And my mommy-heart is SO full and happy because my son LOVED IT!  I think he read it four full times in two weeks.  He goes around quoting it now.  He'd seen the movie before -- my brother and I actually took him to see it on the big screen a couple of years ago, one of those TCM + Fathom Events showings.  But he was about 10 when he saw the movie and didn't really get the wonderfulness.  Now he gets it :-D

I don't always reread the books that we're studying together, especially if I've read them within the last few years.  But I hadn't read this since 2013, so I decided I was due for a reread.  And I loved it all over again.  The witty dialog, the sarcasm, the send-up of so many fairy tale and adventure story tropes, the wonderful characters, the delicious authorial asides... it's just a delight for beginning to end.  

(I suppose I should mention that this is a humorous fantasy story about a beautiful girl and a handsome boy who fall in love, are parted by pirates and princes, find each other again, lose each other again, and everything turns out pretty happily in the end.)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for violence, torture, and some bad language.  Also a little extremely veiled suggestive material.  But yes, I let my 12-yr-old read it anyway.

"Grateful American" by Gary Sinise

I'm fumbling around for words to describe or explain or praise this book.  I want to do all three, but it's such a thoroughly good book -- and I enjoyed it so much -- that it's hard for me to write about it without descending into what will sound like sentimental hyperbole.

But I'll try.

I became a fan of Gary Sinise in 1995, when my parents took my brother and I to see Apollo 13 in the theater.  He played astronaut Ken Mattingly, and my brother and I glommed onto him as someone we just wanted to protect and defend, of that makes any sense at all.  Mattingly doesn't get to go on the mission to the moon like he was supposed to, which was a huge disappointment at first, but turned out to be a godsend, as he was on the ground to help figure out ways to get his crewmates back.  Sinise plays Mattingly with a beautifully grounded, sensible, can-do attitude that endeared the character to us from our very first viewing (an emotional event I detailed here in my review of the film).

Later on, I saw Forrest Gump (1994) and The Quick and the Dead (1995) on VHS, and they cemented Sinise in my mind as a Good Guy.  Something about him came across as genuinely upright, more than just a role or behavior he was playing at.  As if he was a nice guy in real life, the sort who would be kind and helpful and, well... an all-around Good Guy.  I've seen him in other roles over the years, and he's long been one of those actors whose presence I can count on to elevate whatever material he's working with.  I can count on him to be interesting and watchable, you might say.

I learned a few years ago of Sinise's work with the Lt. Dan Band, entertaining American troops at home and abroad, working with the USO, and raising money to benefit wounded veterans.  All of which added to my idea of him being a Good Guy.  So I joined the launch team for his memoir and waited with a fair measure of anticipation to receive my advance copy, and I expected to enjoy the book. 

What I didn't expect from this book was liking it so much that I carried it around with me for several days so I could read it while my kids were at swimming lessons and various other appointments.  I didn't expect it to make me laugh AND cry, sometimes within the same page.  I didn't expect it to touch my heart.

In simple, direct, honest words, Gary Sinise lays out his life story.  How he grew up in Chicago, a wild, rudderless teen who found direction and purpose in high school theater classes.  How he and a bunch of friends started the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, now one of the most-respected theatre groups in the country, but originally a bunch of actor pals practicing their craft in a basement.  How he dabbled in alcohol and drugs in the '70s, and drifted through his personal life even while his professional life gained momentum.  And how he eventually found meaning by coming to faith in God and joining the Catholic church, and by finding ways to aid and support military personnel, first-responders, and their families.

Intertwined throughout the book is Sinise's lifelong respect for those who put their lives on the line to defend others.  The military, police, firefighters, and other emergency personnel are often taken for granted in the United States, and Sinise insists we need to change that.  He's made it his mission to let them hear his gratitude loud and clear, to know that they are not forgotten or taken for granted.

I'm not in the military, nor is my husband.  But I have an uncle who served in Vietnam, two cousins who were/are in the Air Force, and some great uncles who served in WWII (one even hit Omaha Beach during the D-DAY invasion).  I also have friends in the military, and many members of our congregation are active duty or retired military.  And I've realized that I almost never thank them for their courage and sacrifices and willingness to preserve our freedom.  I'm not sure yet how I can do that, but thanks to this book, I'm starting to look for ways.  I used to send care packages to some friends and relatives when they were deployed overseas, but no one I know personally is deployed right now.  Still, even if it's sending an encouraging note to a friend whose husband is deployed, or inviting another friend and her kids over for a meal when her husband is away at training, I'm sure that I, like Gary Sinise, can "do a little more" (p. 260).

(From my Instagram account)

Particularly Good Bits:

...when joy connects to mission, a life's purpose begins to take shape (p. 187).

Freedom is not something all human beings simply get to have and enjoy.  A price must be paid, and I am grateful to those who are willing to pay that price, sometimes the ultimate price.  Because of these special Americans, I have been able to live out my dreams, succeed at my chosen career, and turn that success into something positive for others (p. 273).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG.  This is one of the cleanest memoirs I've ever read.  Drugs and alcohol make appearances, and dealing with an alcoholic in the family takes center stage for a time.  There is one curse word. 

"The Greatest Showman" Book Tag

Eva over at Coffee, Classics, and Craziness tagged me with this tag that I believe she also created!  She knows how much I love The Greatest Showman (2017), so she knew I'd love doing this tag :-)  Thanks, Eva!

Rules are:

• answer the questions
• tag whoever you want 
• using her graphic is optional, but recommended

~’The Greatest Show’: Name a book that’s as entertaining as a circus

Dragons at Crumbling Castle and Other Stories by Terry Pratchett is EXTREMELY fun.  There's a wonderful audiobook version too.  I heartily recommend both to people of all ages.  The audiobook is actually funnier than reading the book yourself because the reader, Julian Rhind-Tutt, has the most wonderful variety of accents and a dry, ultra-British way of delivering the lines.  

~’A Million Dreams’: Name a book that’s set in a fantastical world

Enchanted by Alethea Kontis has one of the most fantastical worlds I've ever encountered.  I was agog.

~’Come Alive’: Name a book that makes you outrageously happy

The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery is like eating a bowl of delicious ice cream.  Or maybe an entire carton.

~’The Other Side’: Name a book that changed your mind about something

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution by Nicholas Meyer made me believe that Sherlock Holmes pastiches were worth reading after all.  Some of them, anyway.

~’Never Enough’: Name a book that you’ve re-read more than once

How about The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien?  That's actually three books (technically six...) and I've read it half a dozen times.

~’This Is Me’: Name a book with a character that reminds you of yourself

I relate a lot to Anne Elliot in Persuasion by Jane Austen, which is part of why that's my favorite of Austen's novels.  I am overdue for a reread and hoping to sneak it in later this summer.

~’Rewrite the Stars’: Name a book with a forbidden romance

I keep overthinking this and trying to find a romance that's totally forbidden like in Romeo and Juliet.  But how about a romance that's just frowned upon by society?  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte totally has one of those.  Young, poor governess falls in love with approaching-middle-age, rich man.  Nobody approves.  They don't care.  Also, it's my favorite book EVER.

~’Tightrope’: Name a book with an adventurous main character

Constance Kopp, the titular heroine of Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart, is definitely adventurous!

~’From Now On’: Name a book with a wonderful family (related or otherwise)

I'm going to copy Eva on this one, because the found family withing The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton is pretty much as wonderful as they come.

Now... who should I tag?  I'm kind of crunched for time today, so I'm just going to tag Flowers of Quiet Happiness, Meanwhile in Rivendell, Movies Meet Their Match, Any Merry Little Thought, and Lavender Spring even though I haven't had time to look back through their posts and see if they've seen this movie or not.  But I know they all enjoy both books and movies :-)  If YOU loved this movie and want to do this tag, then you're hereby tagged too!

"Uncommon Type" by Tom Hanks

Uncommon Type is a collection of exactly the kind of short stories I would expect Tom Hanks to write.  Charming, wry, compassionate, aggravated, humorous, offbeat, and sometimes just a bit weary.  Three of the stories are interconnected, about a group of thirty-something-ish friends.  There are also numerous "Our Town Today with Hank Fiset" editorial-column pieces that feel the most like they could be narrated by Hanks.  The rest are unconnected short stories on various subjects.

Well, mostly unconnected.  Every single one of these stories involves a typewriter somehow.  Whether it's being used by a character or just mentioned casually, there's a typewriter somewhere in each one.  Which lends an old-fashioned whimsy to even the modern-day-set stories.

These were my favorite stories:

+ "A Month on Greene Street" follows a single mother who moves into a new neighborhood and discovers new things about herself and her preconceived notions about people.

+ "At Loose in the Big Apple" is one of the 'Hank Fiset' editorials, and it discusses whether or not New York City is superior to a small town.

+ "These are the Meditations of My Heart" shows how learning to use an old-fashioned thing like a typewriter can help a modern young woman understand herself better.

+ "Back from Back in Time" is another of the 'Hank Fiset' editorials, and it ruminates on all the different times typewriters have been important in one aging writer's life.

+ "Stay with Us" is written as a screenplay, and it is a cute meditation on seeing new possibilities in old things, places, and people.  I want it to be made into a short film starring Tom Hanks, Famke Janssen, and Chris Hemsworth.  And directed by Ron Howard.  Please?  Thank you.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  mostly PG and PG-13, but stories "Three Exhausting Weeks" and "Go See Costas" would get an R for content and language.

I happen to love old typewriters myself, so I really liked the loving way they got used in so many of these stories.  This is a picture of the library copy I read on top of my mom's old portable typewriter! It was her high school graduation present from her parents in 1970.  When I was about six, I started typing my first stories on it, and I used it for many years before graduating to my mom's old electric Smith-Corona as a teen.  This is a manual typewriter -- you provide all the power yourself.  Love it!

"Film Noir: Light and Shadow" edited by Alain Silver and James Ursini

This book is a delight.

It's absolutely crammed with pictures.  (Yes, as my Goodreads friends know, I got entirely stuck on page 132 because it was a full-page picture of a certain beloved actor, and I didn't want to turn the page on him.)  It's also crammed with details and observations and information and trivia and facts and theories and... yeah, it is completely wonderful.

But what do you expect from a book with a cover that boasts Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney from my fave film noir ever, Laura (1944)?

The only real problem with this book is that now I have dozens more noir films on my to-be-watched list.  Such a problem to have, huh?  

Basically, the whole book is essay after essay devoted to the visual aspects of film noir.  The essays have titles like "Rooms like Reveries: Interiors and Interiority in Film Noir" (Imogen Sara Smith), "The Gangster and Film Noir" (Alain Silver), "Fragments of the Mirror: Hitchcock's Noir Landscape" (Alain Silver), and "Women's Song and Dance Performances in Film Noir" (Christophe Gelly and Delphine Letort) -- you can see how enticing they are to someone who enjoys this film style!

By far, my favorite essay was "Nothingness and Purpose: Light and shadow in It's a Wonderful Life" by Todd Erickson.  I've always felt that Wonderful Life was a much darker movie that it gets credit for, and so much darker than most Christmas movies -- I heartily agree with Erickson that it has noir in its heart.  

If you're a fan of film noir and love learning about how movies are made, love delving into what's going on below the surface of a story, or just generally love reading about movies, you will probably enjoy this book.

If This Was a Movie, I Would Rate It: a hard PG-13 for some bad language (quoting movie lines, mainly) and non-explicit discussions of adult themes and sexual undercurrents in films.

"As You Wish" by Cary Elwes with Joe Layden

I vividly remember the first time I saw The Princess Bride, even if I don't quite know when it was.  I know it was, at the very latest, July of 1992.  My mom, my brother, and I went to visit my aunt at her house one afternoon, just to hang out.  One of my cousins was there, a boy two years older than I was who very kindly did not tend to dismiss me for being younger or for being a girl.  He had made some sort of dessert that involved pudding and crumbled cookies.  For a special treat, he and my aunt offered to introduce my brother and I (and my mom) to a movie they absolutely loved and thought we would love too.

My brother, my cousin, and I all sat on the floor in front of the TV.  My mom and aunt probably sat in chairs -- I don't really remember that detail.  And we ate our dessert and watched The Princess Bride and by the end of the movie, I knew my life would not be the same.  Some stories are like that -- there's my life before them, and my life after them, and those lives are different.

Fast-forward about twenty-five years, to 2017, when my brother and I went to see The Princess Bride on the big screen.  We took my son, who is ten, and who had never seen it before.  Wonderful.

So anyway, I've wanted to read this book since it first came out, being a devoted fan of The Princess Bride.  (My brother and I named our second dog Westley after the title character.)  When I knew for sure that I'd be seeing it on the big screen this fall, I got this from the library, intending to have it all read before we went so I could regale my brother and son with fun stories from the production. 

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut life intervened.  Been kind of a weird fall for reading, in that I've been in the middle of several long books for a long time, and had very little reading time overall.  But I wedged this into my reading time, now I've finished reading this at last, and wow, I totally loved it.  The whole book is joyful, a celebration of how much fun it was to film this movie.  It's peppered with reminiscences from all the surviving cast members, the director (Rob Reiner), and the screenwriter (William Goldman, who also wrote the original book).  

Basically, if you love the movie, you will enjoy this book.  Especially if you enjoy learning about how films are made.  

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for a couple occasional mentions of alcohol use and some mentions of rude humor and so on.  I don't recall there being any bad language, but there might have been some.

This is my tenth book read and reviewed for the Adventure of Reading Challenge 2017 hosted by Heidi at Along the Brandywine.  I signed up for the "Wrangler" level of 10-12 books, so I've hit the low end of that goal.  Let's see if I can read and review two more adventurous books by the end of the year to hit twelve :-)

"Frames" by Loren D. Estleman

I was reading merrily along in chapter 18 when all of a sudden, I stopped breathing.  Not because I was choking, or because the book was suddenly terrifying.  But because, at the bottom of page 176, a character said, "I haven't seen so many cops in one place since they arrested John Landis."

And I stopped breathing and my heart started to pound because I know why John Landis got arrested, and the reason he did makes me EXTREMELY ANGRY AND SAD.  And the book as a whole has nothing to do with Landis, though it's all about Hollywood and movie-making and old movies and things like that, so it's not like this reference was out of place.  It was in perfect place.  I just wasn't expecting it.  

I stopped reading right there too, and told myself to breathe, and gathered my courage, and then made my eyes travel to the top of the next page where, sure enough, the next sentence was: "That would be for the accident that killed Vic Morrow and two child extras on the set of Twilight Zone--The Movie."  And I was very happy that Estleman included that, but I couldn't read any farther for like twenty minutes because I had to sit and think about Vic Morrow and be sad all over again for him.

You see, Vic Morrow is one of my favorite actors.  He starred as my favorite fictional character (Sgt. Saunders) in my favorite TV show, Combat! (1962-67).  And he and two children died, tragically and violently, on the set of Twilight Zone--The Movie when Landis broke all kinds of safety regulations and child labor laws.  And Landis was acquitted, in what I believe to be a terrible miscarriage of justice.  So, yeah, I got a little emotional over having that whole subject come up suddenly in the middle of what is otherwise a charming and playful mystery book.

As for Frames, it's a delightful book.  A film historian and preservationist named Valentino buys a crumbling old theater, finds a long-lost silent film inside, and then finds a dead body.  I liked the major players, the minor characters were memorable, and the mystery was engaging.  I will read more of this series.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  a soft PG-13 for some mild kissing and innuendo, the discovery of a skeleton, and possibly a little mild bad language, though I can't right now remember any words used in particular.  It could almost swing a PG rating.

Top Ten Tuesday: Second Fiddlers

This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt from The Broke and the Bookish is "Top Ten Books with ___________ Characters."  I'm going to focus on "unforgettable secondary characters" which is kind of a vague way of saying this is my Top Ten Books With Secondary Characters I Care More About Than the Main Characters.

I have a habit with becoming extremely fond of side characters.  Who, in turn, have a habit of getting killed off and making me very sad.  But that doesn't happen to all of them, whew.  Here are ten books/series where my favorite character is actually not the main one.  If I've reviewed the book, I've linked its title to my review.

And Now Tomorrow by Rachel Field.  As much as I like Emily Blair, it's Dr. Merek Vance I read the book for.  This is probably a direct result of him being played by Alan Ladd in the movie version, I admit it.

Eragon (and entire series) by Christopher Paolini.  Eragon's okay, but his cousin Roran Stronghammer gets all my attention and allegiance in the series.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schafer and Annie Barrows.  Not that I don't like Juliet Ashton, cuz I do.  But I LOVE so many of the minor characters, especially Dawsey Adams and Isola Pribby.

Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling.  My favorite character is Sirius Black.  He's barely in most of the books, and gets talked about more often than he actually shows up, but I don't care. 

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke.  The only character in the book I liked much at all was Dustfinger.  I loved Dustfinger.  (I like the movie TONS better than the book.)

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott.  Granted it's been over a decade since I read this, but as I remember it, Wilfred of Ivanhoe was an unrealistically good and flawless character.  Both Brian du Bois Guilbert and Rebecca were millions of times more interesting than he is.  So was Wamba.  And Robin Hood.

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.  Here's another one where I do really love the main character.  But Alan Breck Stuart is just so many kinds of amazing and wonderful that David Balfour kind of pales in comparison.

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.  Boromir is only in about half of one of the three books.  And he is absolutely my favorite character.  Though Sam does run him a reasonably close second -- and he's not really the main character either.

Middlemarch by George Eliot.  Dorothea is a fascinating, nuanced, real-seeming character.  But every time Ladislaw shows up, I just pay attention to him instead.

Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. Montgomery.  I'm probably going to be stoned for this opinion, but I don't like Rilla Blythe much at all.  I make it through this book by paying attention to Susan, who is loads more interesting.

Okay, that's it for this week.  Did you do a TTT post this week?  If so, what sorts of characters did you focus on?