Why You Should Be Watching Mr. Selfridge

Mr. Selfridge is in its fourth and final season, and I am completely addicted. A colleague recommended it to me, mainly because my favorite actor, Jeremy Piven, stars as Harry Selfridge. Because it's a PBS show, Mr. Selfridge doesn't get much publicity, so I thought I'd give you five reasons why you should watch it.

5. The acting is amazing. Every single person who is in Mr. Selfridge does an incredible job bringing their characters to life. It's impossible to watch this show without caring about every character (even if it means you just don't like them--and there are plenty of characters in Mr. Selfridge to dislike).

4. Speaking of characters, the storylines for all of them are intense. This show is an emotional roller coaster; I've laughed, I've cried, I've yelled at the TV. If there's an emotion you can feel, you will at some point.

3. The set and costumes are so visually appealing. Because the show is about a department store, the set has to be amazing, and it is. The displays, especially the window displays, are a highlight; the set wouldn't be as beautiful as it is without them.

When it comes to the costumes, Mr. Selfridge is a period piece, which means the costumes had to be carefully selected to fit the period. I love them, especially the costumes from the fourth season. The costumes take on a life of their own throughout the series; they alone make the show worth watching.

2. Historically, Selfridges was the first department store to be opened in London. The impact this had on the way people shopped was incredible, and it's fun to watch the evolution of Selfridges throughout the series.

And the number one reason you should be watching Mr. Selfridge is Jeremy Piven. Forget everything you know about Jeremy Piven, especially if what you know is Jeremy Piven as Entourage's Ari Gold. He did an amazing job playing Ari Gold, but he does an even better job as Harry Selfridge. I am continually amazed at the range of characters Jeremy Piven can play, because his characters are all so different from each other. For me, he really makes the show; I don't think anyone else could have done a better job portraying Harry Selfridge.

Want to catch up on the first three seasons? Click on the links below to put them on hold!

Mr. Selfridge: The Showman Behind the Retail Empire (season one)
Mr. Selfridge: The Complete Second Season
Mr. Selfridge: Season 3

The Brilliant Brontës: Brontës on Film

As you can imagine, there will never be a shortage of Brontë novel adaptations for the big and small screen. Plus, for three women who lived relatively quiet lives in the country, there have been multiple accounts of said lives filmed. The Brontë family continues to fascinate readers and theatergoers, much like Jane Austen, and while sometimes I wonder if the world needs another version of these classic works, it's fun to critique them. Maybe someone could make some movies about the life of Virginia Woolf, too? Then my favorite English authors would all be represented...but that's a topic for another blog post.

I've watched several of these adaptations already (and, not listed, but if you are an Anne Brontë fan I recommend getting The Tenant of Wildfell Hall via Interlibrary Loan), but I thought I'd watch something new for the purposes of this post, rather than trying to comb my faulty memory for more details about past viewings. (But do watch the Isabelles Adjani and Huppert as Les Sœurs Brontë, and my friend and I keep wrangling over the merits of the 2008 version of Wuthering Heights with Tom Hardy - she argues "more naturalistic than other productions", I argue "I can't understand Tom Hardy".)

I chose the 1939 Wuthering Heights, with the stunning cast of Laurence Olivier, David Niven, and Merle Oberon. This version slightly truncated the story, leaving out Hareton Earnshaw and Catherine Linton altogether. I found Olivier to be slightly too urbane to be convincing as Heathcliff the stableboy, but in a large part that's due to Received Pronunciation, which is still how a lot of English actors speak, whatever their regional accents. Also, despite his jet-black hair (dyed?), Olivier seems less exotic than his co-star Oberon (whom he apparently detested). The film score was a bit heavy-handed - it pervaded every scene - and, at least in the beginning, seemed too sprightly for the content, though its composer, Alfred Newman, was nominated for an Academy Award. As the movie went on, the actors' performances grew on me.  I will never be a whole-hearted fan of Wuthering Heights, but Olivier and Oberon really brought the intensity and complexity to their roles, and David Niven was pitch-perfect in the thankless role of Edgar Linton.

I also watched the 1997 Jane Eyre and I'm going to gush a little, because I loved Samantha Morton as Jane. I'm not sure if I've seen another adaptation where Jane does voiceovers, but they seemed perfect here. I was less enamored with Ciarán Hinds as Mr. Rochester (although I chose this version because I loved him in Persuasion) - he felt slightly too ineffectual in that role, not severe or magnetic enough. Gemma Jones played Mrs. Fairfax, and she really is a jewel of English cinema - I've seen her play so many roles adeptly, and this was no exception. Sometimes I felt like Samantha and Gemma were the emotional heart of the film, and Ciarán was just floundering to find his center and barking his lines in an attempt to sound passionate.

I chose these two adaptations to compare how the handling of the Brontës' work had changed over the years, but the main difference I noticed in these productions was the handling of the score - it was much less noticeable in Jane Eyre, but that might also have been the difference between a theatrical release and and a televised production.

What is your favorite adaptation of the Brontës' work? Let us know in the comments!

About 

The Brontës of Haworth
1973 mini-series; with Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Vickery Turner, Alfred Burke

Les soeurs Brontë  = The Brontë sisters
1979 film; with Isabelle Adjani, Marie-France Pisier, Isabelle Huppert, Pascal Greggory


Adaptations of the novels

Jane Eyre

1944 film; with Orson Welles, Joan Fontaine, Margaret O'Brien, Agnes Moorehead

1997 TV drama; with Samantha Morton, Gemma Jones, Ciaran Hinds, Rupert Penry-Jones, Deborah Findlay

2006 mini-series; with Toby Stephens, Ruth Wilson, Francesca Annis 

2011 film; with Jamie Bell, Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Judi Dench


Wuthering Heights 

1939 film; with Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Flora Robson, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Miles Mander, Hugh Williams, Donald Crisp, Leo G. Carroll

1992 film; with Juliette Binoche, Ralph Fiennes, Janet McTeer, Sophie Ward, Simon Shepherd, Jeremy Northam, Jason Riddington, Simon Ward, Dick Sullivan

2008 TV drama; with Tom Hardy, Charlotte Riley, Andrew Lincoln, Sarah Lancashire, Burn Gorman, Rosalind Halstead


Links

The Enthusiast's Guide to Jane Eyre Adaptations

The Reader's Guide to Wuthering Heights: Movie and TV Adaptations

*This post is part of our year-long Brilliant Brontës challenge! To see more posts, search for the labels "Brontë, challenge" in the blog sidebar. 

Big Brother is Watching You

The resources listed below aid in that cause in that they discuss a range of examples of mediated and restricted information exchange. They also reveal that the surveillance state is functioning internationally, as seen in recent revelations that malware is embedded into PC firmware and cell phone SIMs at the point of production and in the revelation of our country’s surveillance of leaders of even “friendly” nations. Most important, these resources show the overlapping uses of mass information collection for corporations and government.
~Jesse A. Lambertson, "Careful, You're Being Watched: Surveillance and Privacy"

Laura Poitras, director of the Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour, says "People are starting to understand that the devices we carry with us reveal our location, who we're talking to, and all kinds of other information." We already know that Google shows you ads, and that you can edit your settling to "control the ads that are delivered to you"; your Facebook NewsFeed also has ads targeted for your specific interests or demographic, and on January 26th Facebook announced that their Audience Network (FAN) would be expanding. Every time you download a new app for your phone, you give the app permission to access a lot of information from your device, and do you even know what the app is using the data for? Have you heard about the "Google Security Princess"? Her job is try to hack Google, to find flaws in the system before "blackhat" hackers do. There have been so many hacked sites in the last few years, from the Target fiasco of 2014 to the infamous Ashley Madison debacle last year - when you give sites your information, seems like you are always taking a risk.

What are you doing to protect your privacy and secure your information online? How is your password strength? PC World recommends controlling your digital footprint by checking your settings on social media and being careful about what you post; using different identities on different sites; and browsing privately. Also, the library has many items of interest, whether you want to know what the issues are right now or want to find out more about the history of surveillance.

Current titles

I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did: Social Networks and the Death of Privacy by Lori Andrews

Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security, and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance by Julia Angwin

Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single Superpower World by Tom Engelhardt

Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Capture Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneier

Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection by Jacob Silverman

The Rise of the American Corporate Security State: Six Reasons to Be Afraid by Beatrice Edwards 

Privacy in the Age of Big Data: Recognizing Threats, Defending Your Rights, and Protecting Your Family by Theresa M. Payton and Theodore Claypoole  

Inside the NSA: America's Cyber Secrets [DVD]

Terms and Conditions May Apply [DVD] 
 

History of surveillance

The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency by Matthew M. Aid

The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? by David Brin

The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State by Shane Harris

Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin

The End of Privacy: How Total Surveillance is Becoming a Reality by Reg Whitaker

More Awesome Than Money: Four Boys and Their Heroic Quest to Save Your Privacy from Facebook by Jim Dwyer 

 

How do you feel about surveillance, be it done in the interests of national security or by a corporation? Laura Poitras also says, "There are people who are always going to try to engage in activity that is illegal and they're going to try to subvert surveillance. But everyone should not give up their liberties and rights to privacy because some people are going to [do that]. We shouldn't stop or limit our basic liberties because some people are going to engage in criminal activities." The Pew Research Center has done a study that found "that there are a variety of circumstances under which many Americans would share personal information or permit surveillance in return for getting something of perceived value." Let us know your opinions in the comments.

For more books on this topic, try a subject search of "Privacy, Right of" and "Electronic Surveillance".

Links
Recommended by Library Journal

TorProject—Anonymity Online

Aside from listing several technological open-sourced projects built with privacy and anonymity at the core, this site is also a reference for research related to Internet freedom.

Apps/Technology 

ChatSecure

DuckDuckGo

Enigmail

OTR (Off-the-Record) Chat

RedPhone and TextSecure

Classic Crime Documentaries

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst is now on DVD, and you can place your hold on this chilling documentary. The Jinx raises many questions about justice, evidence, and the legal options for an ultra wealthy real estate icon. Durst is suspected in the disappearance of his wife Kathleen Durst, the murder of his friend Susan Berman,, and he was also tried and acquitted in the death and dismemberment of his neighbor Morris Black. Why isn't he behind bars? The Jinx will answer these questions and show you what the best possible defense can buy, right up until the point the client brings it all crashing down.

For a visit to the other side of the tracks, check out Amy Berg's documentary West of Memphis. Berg's documentary chronicles the harrowing journey of the West Memphis Three, the title for three Arkansas teenagers: Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Miskelly Jr., who were wrongfully convicted in the homicide of three eight-year-old boys. Michael Moore, Steven Branch, and Christopher Byers were found in Robin Hood Hills in horrifying circumstances. Their deaths triggered a traumatic reaction from a town steeped in religion. The "Satanic panic" gripping the time this crime occurred in overrode the investigation and three more boys paid the price of hysteria and prejudice. West of Memphis reveals what the defense had to go through in order to get Echols off of death row after eighteen years of solitary confinement and the confounding compromises of an Alford plea for all three convicted men.

Werner Herzog's pensive documentary Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life, takes viewers into the heart of the death penalty and considers the perspectives of the condemned, victims, executioners, and a sensitive pastor who attended countless executions, ministering right up to the end. Herzog makes his position on this issue clear, but his gifts as a director make it possible for opponents to state their experiences and opinions candidly.

Errol Morris has directed and produced many outstanding documentaries, but The Thin Blue Line still stands out as an enthralling documentary about wrongful convictions and how important it is for citizens to invoke their Miranda rights when questioned by the police. Morris's re-enactment of crucial events and an eerie accompanying soundtrack by Philip Glass draws viewers in to the sinkhole of being an innocent man whose life is stolen. The Thin Blue Line is a masterpiece of journalism and tenacity from a director who brought new possibilities for justice through documentary films.

Dear Zachary: A Letter To His Son About His Father by Kurt Kuenne is a wrenching journey through the Canadian legal system, as experienced by David and Kate Bagby. The Bagby's only son Andrew, a beloved young doctor was murdered by a disturbed woman named Shirley Turner, who gave birth to their grandson Zachary. The film focuses on the Bagby's fight to win custody of Zachary, while enduring a convoluted extradition process between Canada and the United States, so that Shirley could stand trial for murdering Andrew. Kuenne travels through America and England, interviewing Andrew's friends and relatives, in order to present Zachary with memories of the father he would never meet. Ultimately, Dear Zachary becomes a different testimonial about the nature of good and evil, and the inexcusable failures of a justice system that disregards victims' rights.

For more mind blowing documentaries, check out the following DVDs:

The Jeffrey Dahmer Files

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

Crime After Crime

The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden

Frontline: The Real CSI

Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger

Capturing the Friedmans

Tabloid

Plunder: The Crime of Our Time

An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story

Deliver Us From Evil

The Enduring Appeal of Abraham Lincoln

The vast amount of literature on Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) is almost unmatched in the English language, behind only that on Jesus and William Shakespeare. Interest in the 16th president of the United States has never abated, but the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth (2009) along with the sesquicentennials of the Civil War (2011) and Lincoln’s death (2015) have spurred even more interest in his character and the consequences of his presidency.
~Randall M. Miller, "Lincoln, 150 Years On"

There's still time this year to observe the sesquicentennial of the death of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States. There is indeed a wealth of material to delve into - besides the non-fiction list we've assembled below, there have been two recent related feature films, Lincoln and The Conspirator, there's a book and a movie about Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, and Jennifer Chiaverini, best known for her quilting novels, has been writing loosely related historical fiction set in the Civil War period which directly references the Lincoln family, most notably Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker. Our society's fascination with Lincoln extends to our presidents - earlier this year, The New York Times published an article called "Abraham Lincoln, the One President All of Them Want to Be More Like". His funeral train, his hat, his poetry - everything has been discussed, it seems.


The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows by Gabor Boritt 

Lincoln's Gamble: The Tumultuous Six Months That Gave America the Emancipation Proclamation and Changed the Course of the Civil War by Todd Brewster

Abraham Lincoln and White America by Brian R. Dirck

Year of Meteors: Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and the Election That Brought On the Civil War by Douglas R. Egerton

The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America by Allen C. Guelzo

Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion by Harold Holzer

Writing the Gettysburg Address by Martin P. Johnson

Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer by Fred Kaplan

Tried By War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief by James M. McPherson

Mr. Lincoln Goes to War by William Marvel

Lincoln and the Jews: A History by Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell 

Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation: Constitutional Conflict in the American Civil War by Mark E. Neely [eBook] 

Lincoln's War: The Untold Story of America's Greatest President as Commander in Chief by Geoffrey Perret  

Lincoln's Body: A Cultural History by Richard Wightman Fox 

Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass & Abraham Lincoln by John Stauffer 

The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words by Ronald C. White, Jr.

 House of Abraham: Lincoln and the Todds, A Family Divided By War by Stephen Berry 

  

DVDs

You Are There: Abraham Lincoln's Great Moments 

The Address

Looking at Lincoln (J) 


For more new items in the library catalog, try a subject search of "Abraham Lincoln" sorted by date. 

Links

Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project 

This useful resource offers documents, articles, images, biographical videos featuring major Lincoln scholars and interactive resources on the president’s Illinois years.

Abraham Lincoln’s Classroom

Cartoons, biographies, articles, book excerpts, maps, quizzes, bio-sketches of Lincoln-era figures and his life.

App

Abe App

Available for Google Play and iTunes. For students of all ages, an interactive resource produced in conjunction with the Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation.

     

   

New & Novel: History of Punk

What is punk? Simply put, a music genre with a heyday in the 1970s, but also, culturally, an anti-establishment movement rooted in freedom of expression.  A lot of people have embraced punk, from fashion designer Vivienne Westwood to musician Billie Joe Armstrong to actor Noomi Rapace.  Musicians like Robert Smith, Kurt Cobain, Jack White, Beth Ditto, Florence Welch, Sufjan Stevens,and Moby have all talked about the impact punk played on their lives. Here's a few quotes from some of the major players of punk in an attempt to encapsulate the movement:

To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom not to be successful, freedom to be who you are.  It's freedom.
~Patti Smith

Questioning anything and everything, to me, is punk rock.
~Henry Rollins

Punk was originally about creating new, important, energetic music that would hopefully threaten the status quo and the stupidity of the 1970s.
~Jello Biafra

People forget the punk thing was really good for women. It motivated them to pick up a guitar rather than be a chanteuse.  It allowed us to be aggressive.
~Siouxsie Sioux

To me, punk is about being an individual and going against the grain and standing up and saying 'This is who I am.'
~Joey Ramone

I never wanted to go back and relive the glory days; I just wanted to keep moving forward. That's what I took from punk.  Keep moving.  Don't look back.
~Paul Simonon

We recently saw an internet meme that showed a picture of punk rockers Ian MacKaye and Henry Rollins (as they look today) with the caption "Punk rock is not dead. It is, however, graying, balding, and going to bed at a much more reasonable hour..." With that on our minds, and the recent memoirs published by Patti Smith (M Train) and Carrie Brownstein (Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl) in the library catalog, and with a little help from the folks at Book Riot, we thought it might be a good time to revisit the history of one of our favorite genres. Here's some items dealing with history of punk from the library catalog:


From the Velvets to the Voidoids: A Pre-Punk History For a Post-Punk World by Clinton Heylin [eBook]

Girl In a Band: A Memoir by Kim Gordon

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes; Music, Music, Music; Boys, Boys, Boys: A Memoir by Viv Albertine

Punk: The Whole Story edited by Mark Blake

Totally Wired: Post-Punk Interviews and Overviews by Simon Reynolds  [eBook]

Punk Rock Blitzkrieg: My Life as a Ramone by Marky Ramone with Richard Herschlag

Dancing with Myself by Billy Idol

Anger Is an Energy: My Life Uncensored by John Lydon

Punk by Stephen Colegrave & Chris Sullivan

The Punk Rock Fun Time Activity Book by Aye Jay  [eBook]

Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond, 1977-1981 by Liz Worth [eBook]

Punk Rock, So What?: The Cultural Legacy of Punk edited by Roger Sabin [eBook]

Punk Rock: An Oral History by John Robb [eBook]

For Kids 

The Story of Punk and Indie by Matt Anniss (J)

DVDs

The Punk Singer: A Documentary Film About Kathleen Hanna 

Punk Revolution NYC

The Decline of Western Civilization Collection 
(See the Penelope Spheeris' "crucial, compelling statement of the most significant and influential youth movement and musical transformation of the past 3 decades" at The Guild Cinema November 20-21!)

We Are the Best!


For more punk, try a subject search of "Punk rock musicians" or "Punk culture". You can even find some fiction with punk rock themes, like Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad, I Am China by Xiaolu Guo, The Unnoticeables by Robert Brockway, Tyler McMahon's How the Mistakes Were Made, The Predictions by Bianca Zander, and The Listeners by Leni Zumas.

The World of Ian Fleming & 007

Are you ready for Spectre, the 24th film featuring super-spy  James Bond 007? (Excluding non-Eon produced films such as Casino Royale [1967] and Never Say Never Again.) It's in theaters beginning November 6th!

In honor of the new Bond movie, we thought it was time for a bit of a round-up of all things Bond, James Bond in the library catalog. We do have 13 of the movies available for your viewing pleasure, including examples of several Bonds - Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig. But there's so much more!  The original books by Ian Fleming! A teen Bond series for young adults! In the past couple of years a couple of Ian Fleming's non-Bond related books have been reissued, and there have been many other additions to the Fleming-Bond oeuvre.  How about taking one of the items listed below out for a spin?  All that we ask is that you treat library materials better than James Bond treats the cars that Q supplies for him...


Trigger Mortis: A James Bond Novel, With Original Material by Ian Fleming by Anthony Horowitz

Goldeneye: Where Bond Was Born - Ian Fleming's Jamaica by Matthew Parker

Secrets of Her Majesty's Secret Service [DVD]

The Signs of James Bond: Semiotic Explorations In The World of 007 by Daniel Ferreras Savoye [eBook]

Thrilling Cities by Ian Fleming

The Diamond Smugglers by Ian Fleming

Bond on Bond: Reflections on 50 Years of James Bond Movies by Roger Moore; with Gareth Owen [eBook]

The Music of James Bond by Jon Burlingame

Best of Bond-- James Bond: 50th Anniversary Collection  [CD]

The Life of Ian Fleming by John Pearson [eBook]

James Bond in the 21st Century: Why We Still Need 007 by Glenn Yeffeth [eBook]

For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming + James Bond by Ben Macintyre [eBook] 

Bond On Set: Filming Quantum of Solace by Greg Williams 

The Science of James Bond: From Bullets to Bowler Hats to Boat Jumps, The Real Technology Behind 007's Fabulous Films by Lois H. Gresh, Robert Weinberg

The Man Who Saved Britain: A Personal Journey Into the Disturbing World of James Bond by Simon Winder

The James Bond Bedside Companion by Raymond Benson 

Too Bad to Die by Francine Mathews 
A historical thriller featuring British Naval Intelligence Officer Ian Fleming!

Links

Spectre trailer: 007 things we learned about the new James Bond movie [Guardian] 

Meet the new James Bond femme fatales, Lea Seydoux and Monica Bellucci, in the latest Spectre video [EW] 

Radiohead Emerges as Frontrunner to Record 'Spectre' Theme After Suspicious U.K. Betting [Billboard]
  

The Movie was Better

Who hasn't heard the phrase "the book was better than the movie"? One of our pages told me today that books are always better than the movies that are based on them.

Frankly, I disagree. I've watched some movies that I thought were far better, or equally as good, as the books they were based on. Today, I'd like to share the movies that I love more than the books (or that I love just as much as I love the books--I'll specify when I talk about each one).

Black Hawk Down

Confession: I don't watch that many movies. I have a hard time focusing on them, because I always feel like I need to be doing something else while I watch movies, and that usually results in me not paying much attention to what I'm supposed to be watching.

Black Hawk Down* is a different story. I've seen it well over 20 times; it's my all-time favorite movie. It was the first war movie I ever really watched, and even though I don't recall when the events happened (I was too young at the time), I connected with the movie in a way I never thought I would have.

Bonus: The soundtrack for the movie is also great. I currently have it on repeat on my iPod.

*The link is for the book, not the movie.

Forrest Gump

After I finished reading Forrest Gump, I was left with the feeling that I have never read a more disappointing book. This isn't actually true--I've read far more disappointing books--but at the time, I couldn't believe how bad this book was. The storyline works great for the movie, which is definitely helped by Tom Hanks, but for the books, it didn't work for me at all. I'm not sure if it was because it felt a little too unrealistic, or if this is the type of story that needs to be told visually. Either way, the book didn't work for me, but I love the movie.

Watch the movie | Read the book

Jaws

A lot of people dislike this movie because of how it represents sharks. I partially agree with this; sharks don't act the way the shark in Jaws does, and to an extent, this movie did a disservice to sharks because of that misrepresentation. Despite that, Jaws is one of my favorite movies, simply because for me, it did the opposite of what it did for others: It made me love great whites.

The book is very different from the movie, and I was disappointed. Maybe if I had read the book before seeing the movie, I would feel differently, but as it is, I didn't enjoy the book at all.

Watch the movie | Read the book

Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park is a classic. As with Jaws, I saw the movie before I read the book, and I loved it. When I finally read the book as an adult, I was happy to see that it was just as good as the movie. I will probably always like the movie a little bit more than I like the book, partly because the book has more of the science in it than the movie does, and because it's a movie that is just plain awesome.

Watch the movie | Read the book

Strangers on a Train

I wasn't a huge fan of Alfred Hitchcock until I saw Strangers on a Train. I fell in love with the movie; the story is great, the cinematography is awesome, and the acting was brilliant. When I found out the movie was based on a book, I was really excited--until I tried to read it. I couldn't get into the book at all, and I've never been able to finish it. Strangers on a Train will always be a movie that is far better than a book for me.

Watch the movie | Read the book