30 Books to Read Before You Die (Pt. 40)

We’ve now hit 1,200 in our list and I’m very proud of the fact that we’ve come so far on this journey. You may notice that still, there are some books you have known and loved that are missing and don’t hesitate to contact me to tell me what they are! We’ve talked about many things but in this article I want to talk about how awfully some books are turned into films, giving some examples of how not to adapt a book. Let’s get straight into it…

Henri Charriere wrote a brilliant book entitled Papillon and yet, the book was ruined not once, but twice after Hollywood decided to turn it into a film. Both versions are not only under-representative of the book, they don’t really have the same feel as the book does and they also don’t evoke the same amount of sadness, grief and hope. I feel like the first version was far too underdone to be a good representation of the book and made the source material look very shallow indeed. The second version was just flat-out terrible in every way. There was bad casting, shallow acting, and the characters were nothing like you imagine them to be in the book. I feel this is a book Hollywood should have left alone.

Victor Hugo’s incredible Les Miserables has been ruined by Hollywood on so many occasions with the Broadway and West End productions having to come in to clean up the mess and make an actual worthy performance of the book. Not many things are quite as bad in adaptation as the 2012 version of Les Miserables and that is exactly how I felt watching it—depressed. It was atmospherically all wrong, there were very few good performances, most of the actors were badly cast and the songs were awfully performed in most cases. I think the stand-out performances in Les Miserables (2012) were by Anne Hathaway and Eddie Redmayne, apart from that it was a droning and boring film. How can you make Les Miserables boring? Call Hollywood and they’ll tell you.

Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express couldn’t have been more ruined if it tried. As much as I love Kenneth Branagh I think it’s best we keep him away from Agatha Christie novels, because his version of this book was so incredibly bad that it made it on to my list of one of the worst films ever made (to be published). I feel like most of the performances were very, very bad especially those given by Penelope Cruz (oddly enough) and Lucy Boynton (exactly how much did her father pay for her to be cast in that film? Her acting is always awful, don’t be surprised). Cruz’s acting was shallow and Boynton’s acting is always over the top and plain awful, but the performance I was surprised about was Johnny Depp. Even Depp’s performance was bloody bad. Johnny Depp is normally one of the greatest actors in Hollywood but in this film he is bland, boring, and ultimately, unwatchable. The only performances that were any good were the performances of the amazing Dame Judi Dench and the loveable Daisy Ridley. Everyone else was completely forgettable and needed re-casting.

Apart from that, the film was an awful representation of the book and I can probably name, based on the bad performances, the cast members that didn’t read the book (though I don’t think Lucy Boynton can actually read based on how she portrays her lack of intelligence; she made it on to my list of the “ten worst actresses of all time.” But, as much as I adore Penelope Cruz, she didn’t read the book and there’s no way you can convince me she did). I don’t think Johnny Depp read the book because if he did, he wouldn’t have done whatever the hell that performance was. This film shouldn’t have happened. Not in the slightest.

Anyways, enough of my rambling—let’s get on with the list. Hopefully Hollywood hasn’t ruined these books yet, since they are so well-known for ruining books. Thirty books I’ve read in succession and with my favourites marked out with a (*)—talking about one or two intermittently, you can probably recite this back to me now. Let’s get on with it.

1171-1180

1171. A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene

1172. Burnt Norton by TS Eliot

1173. 'Death on the Nile' by Agatha Christie*

Oh please God, don’t let Kenneth Branagh ruin this one (prays)… Ah damnit, he’s already started scripting and casting. I hate Hollywood—what a weird pool of the world’s most disgusting human beings. How awful. You see, this is why we can’t have nice things!

1174. Wolf Among Wolves by Hans Fallada

1175. The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell

1176. Big Money by John Dos Passos

1177. The Outsider by HP Lovecraft

1178. Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by TS Eliot*

1179. Love and Mr. Lewisham by HG Wells

1180. Kim by Rudyard Kipling

1181-1190

1181. Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm

1182. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

1183. The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov

1184. Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

1185. The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter

1186. Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw

1187. The New Machiavelli by HG Wells

1188. Peter and Wendy by JM Barrie

1189. Women in Love by DH Lawrence

1190. Coming Up for Air by George Orwell

1191-1200

1191. The Trespasser by DH Lawrence

1192. Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

1193. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

1194. The 39 Steps by John Buchan

1195. His Last Bow by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

1196. The Outline of History by HG Wells

1197. Night and Day by Virginia Woolf

1198. All Roads Lead to Calvary by Jerome K Jerome

1199. The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

1200. The Prussian Officer and Other Stories by DH Lawrence