a little and a lot

Friday, July 24, 2009

Judging a Book by It's...

So I am behind (again) on updates. In the meantime, I have a little rant to share.

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this...
I can't stand reading books (that have been turned into movies) that have the movie poster on the cover. Are ya with me?

The day after my birthday, I received a lovely gift from the City of Memphis--an invitation to an exclusive party next week...called Jury Duty. Joy of joys. Actually, I was secretly a bit excited--I mean, I'm in the club now.

Everyone under the sun says, "Bring a good book." So off I went, to the library in search of the one long book I've been saving for such a time as this: "The Time Traveler's Wife." I almost checked it out six months ago, but it was so long and I knew I'd never finish it in time. But now...perfect. Alas, it was checked out.

On to Target, where it was on sale on an endcap. Except...no copies left.

On to the other Target, where it was sold out as well. The nice man with the scanner gun told me it was sold out of all Memphis Targets. Bummer.

By now, I'm committed. I must read this book during Jury Duty. I will pay (gasp) bookstore price. Davis Kidd. Browsing the tables, browsing the Fiction section. Asking the man at the information booth, following him through the Romance and Science Fiction sections. He finally looks it up on the computer. "Ahhhh, we're sold out. But we should get more copies in a few days. I think they're changing the front cover since the movie's about to come out."

Noooooo....! NOT THE MOVIE COVER!

I feel like reading a book with a movie cover makes you seem less legit. Like it wouldn't have dawned on you to read the book unless you'd seen the movie or known it was coming out. Like you really just thought Rachel McAdams looked pretty in the picture and thought, "Eh, I'll read that."

I want the original cover. The cover that says, "I like books, and I owned this before it was cool."

And isn't the book ALWAYS so much better than the movie? I don't want my book cover to be marred by the lesser equal. Give me the original, man!

I called Bookstar, and the nice man told me that they had one copy left of "The Time Traveler's Wife" and he would hold it for me. I drove over, paid for the book, pulled it out of the bag, and...

Original cover.
Yessssss....
With a silver medallion printed in the corner that said, "Now a major motion picture!"
Ok, whatever. I'll take what I can get.

7 comments:

Kristy said...

I really want to know how you feel about this book. It's been on my list for some time now, and now that the movie is coming out, I find myself disappointed that I've waited too long. It's too "cool" now... I'm right there with you on hating movie poster book covers, and shame on Davis Kidd for carrying such an edition! :)

Nick Faris said...

Speaking from personal experience, this is true. The book about my life will be better than the movie.

(The book is always better. A movie, at best, only supplements the book.)

Jesse Faris said...

Kristy, I am only about 30 pages into the book and am SO enjoying it. I think you might like it? (PS: I just finished "The Beach House"--have you?)

Nick, if you get to play yourself in the movie, then the movie will be better than the book, sorry to say.

Speaking of, don't you hate it when you watch a great movie and read in the credits that it was originally a book. That is such an "Awww, man!" moment for me. I refuse to read a book after I've watched the movie...can't do it.

Ashley @ pure and lovely said...

totally agree...really want to read this.

Unknown said...

it's

see: title
(sorry)

Martha said...

This is my favorite book of all time.

khovater said...

I read if a few years ago and loved it! Found a little hard to follow at times, but I just maybe a little slow. Anyway, enjoy Jesse!


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