books made into movies

Get ready to laugh!  The next Genre Reading Group meeting will be Tuesday, June 25, 2013 at 6:30pm in the Library's conference room and the topic up for discussion is humor writing.

This past Tuesday, GRG discussed books that have been made into movies.  In retrospect, there should have been a red carpet arrival event for book group members, but I've only just now thought of it. :-)

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Saferan Foer (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close recasts recent history through the eyes of Oskar Schell, an unusually intelligent nine-year-old on an urgent quest to find the lock that matches a mysterious key belonging to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. This unlikely adventure takes Oskar through every city borough and into contact with survivors of all sorts, and it's his irrepressible voice—one that few writers could conceive as imaginatively as Foer does—that transforms the tragedy of circumstance into an exhilarating tribute to love.

Stuart Little by E. B. White (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Stuart Little is no ordinary mouse. Born to a family of humans, he lives in New York City with his parents, his older brother George, and Snowbell the cat. Though he's shy and thoughtful, he's also a true lover of adventure.  Stuart's greatest adventure comes when his best friend, a beautiful little bird named Margalo, disappears from her nest. Determined to track her down, Stuart ventures away from home for the very first time in his life. He finds adventure aplenty. But will he find his friend?

Charlotte's Web by E. B. White (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Charlotte's Web is the story of a little girl named Fern who loved a little pig named Wilbur—and of Wilbur's dear friend Charlotte A. Cavatica, a beautiful large grey spider who lived with Wilbur in the barn.  With the help of Templeton, the rat who never did anything for anybody unless there was something in it for him, and by a wonderfully clever plan of her own, Charlotte saved the life of Wilbur, who by this time had grown up to quite a pig.  How all this comes about is Mr. White's story. It is a story of the magic of childhood on the farm. The thousands of children who loved Stuart Little, the heroic little city mouse, will be entranced with Charlotte the spider, Wilbur the pig, and Fern, the little girl who understood their language.

The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Like the rest of his family, Louis is a trumpeter swan. But unlike his four brothers and sisters, Louis can't trumpet joyfully. In fact, he can't even make a sound. And since he can't trumpet his love, the beautiful swan Serena pays absolutely no attention to him.  Louis tries everything he can think of to win Serena's affection--he even goes to school to learn to read and write. But nothing seems to work. Then his father steals him a real brass trumpet. Is a musical instrument the key to winning Louis his love?

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Bella Swan's move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Bella's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Bella, the person Edward holds most dear.  Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite.

Dune by Frank Herbert (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Here is the novel that will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Muad'Dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family--and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream. A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what it undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.

The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Begun in 1959 by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s. The narrator, freelance journalist Paul Kemp, irresistibly drawn to a sexy, mysterious woman, is soon thrust into a world where corruption and get-rich-quick schemes rule and anything (including murder) is permissible. Exuberant and mad, youthful and energetic, this dazzling comedic romp provides a fictional excursion as riveting and outrageous as Thompson’s Fear and Loathing books.

About Schmidt by Louis Begley (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
As he tries to make his life habitable again--after the devastating loss of his wife--retired lawyer Albert Schmidt finds the possibility of regeneration in a new love the old "Schmidtie" would never have dreamt of. Set in the Hamptons and Mahnattan, and laced with black humor, About Schmidt casts a cold, pitiless eye on the eastern seaboard upper class, the last vestiges of once-ascendant WASPs, and the newcomers whose fortunes are rising.

Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Ree Dolly's father has skipped bail on charges that he ran a crystal meth lab, and the Dollys will lose their house if he doesn't show up for his next court date. With two young brothers depending on her, 16-year-old Ree knows she has to bring her father back, dead or alive. Living in the harsh poverty of the Ozarks, Ree learns quickly that asking questions of the rough Dolly clan can be a fatal mistake. But, as an unsettling revelation lurks, Ree discovers unforeseen depths in herself and in a family network that protects its own at any cost.

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920s, The Painted Veil is the story of the beautiful but love-starved Kitty Fane. When her husband discovers her adulterous affair, he forces her to accompany him to the heart of a cholera epidemic. Stripped of the British society of her youth and the small but effective society she fought so hard to attain in Hong Kong, she is compelled by her awakening conscience to reassess her life and learn how to love.  The Painted Veil is a beautifully written affirmation of the human capacity to grow, to change, and to forgive.

Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy by Frances Mayes (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Frances Mayes—widely published poet, gourmet cook, and travel writer—opens the door to a wondrous new world when she buys and restores an abandoned villa in the spectacular Tuscan countryside. In evocative language, she brings the reader along as she discovers the beauty and simplicity of life in Italy. Mayes also creates dozens of delicious seasonal recipes from her traditional kitchen and simple garden, all of which she includes in the book. Doing for Tuscany what M.F.K. Fisher and Peter Mayle did for Provence, Mayes writes about the tastes and pleasures of a foreign country with gusto and passion.

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Macon Leary is a travel writer who hates both travel and anything out of the ordinary. He is grounded by loneliness and an unwillingness to compromise his creature comforts when he meets Muriel, a deliciously peculiar dog-obedience trainer who up-ends Macon’s insular world–and thrusts him headlong into a remarkable engagement with life.

Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.  Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.  Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (to place a hold on the MOVIE, click here)
Lily is haunted by memories–of who she once was, and of a person, long gone, who defined her existence. She has nothing but time now, as she recounts the tale of Snow Flower, and asks the gods for forgiveness.

In nineteenth-century China, when wives and daughters were foot-bound and lived in almost total seclusion, the women in one remote Hunan county developed their own secret code for communication: nu shu (“women’s writing”). Some girls were paired with laotongs, “old sames,” in emotional matches that lasted throughout their lives. They painted letters on fans, embroidered messages on handkerchiefs, and composed stories, thereby reaching out of their isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments.

With the arrival of a silk fan on which Snow Flower has composed for Lily a poem of introduction in nu shu, their friendship is sealed and they become “old sames” at the tender age of seven. As the years pass, through famine and rebellion, they reflect upon their arranged marriages, loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their lifelong friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a brilliantly realistic journey back to an era of Chinese history that is as deeply moving as it is sorrowful. With the period detail and deep resonance of Memoirs of a Geisha, this lyrical and emotionally charged novel delves into one of the most mysterious of human relationships: female friendship.

What are YOU watching/reading?

It's Time To Refresh Your Reading List!

Hi Readers!

I'm introducing a new feature to our blog - each week I'll post some new titles for you to refresh your reading list, and links to bookish websites. Enjoy!

The titles below have been published in the last few weeks. Emmet O'Neal owns copies, but they may be checked out. Click on the title to be taken to the library's website where you can check the status of the book and place a hold. In most cases we have multiple copies of the books available in multiple formats!

 The Apple Orchard by Susan Wiggs

 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs brings listeners to the lush abundance of Sonoma County in a novel of sisters, friendship and how memories are woven like a spell around us. Tess Delaney makes a living restoring stolen treasures to their rightful owners. People like Annelise Winther, who refuses to sell her long-gone mother’s beloved necklace — despite Tess’s advice. To Annelise, the jewel’s value is in its memories. But Tess’s own history is filled with gaps: a father she never met, a mother who spent more time traveling than with her daughter. So Tess is shocked when she discovers the grandfather she never knew is in a coma. And that she has been named in his will to inherit half of Bella Vista, a hundred-acre apple orchard in the magical Sonoma town called Archangel. The rest is willed to Isabel Johansen. A half sister she’s never heard of. Against the rich landscape of Bella Vista, Tess begins to discover a world filled with the simple pleasures of food and family, of the warm earth beneath her bare feet. A world where family comes first and the roots of history run deep. A place where falling in love is not only possible, but inevitable. And in a season filled with new experiences, Tess begins to see the truth in something Annelise once told her: if you don’t believe memories are worth more than money, then perhaps you’ve not made the right kind of memories. From one of America’s most beloved writers, The Apple Orchard is a story of family ties — both old and new — and of the moments that connect our hearts.

 –-Publisher’s Summary

Best Kept Secret by Jeffrey Archer

 

Jeffrey Archer's mesmerizing saga of the Clifton and Barrington families continues...
1945, London. The vote in the House of Lords as to who should inherit the Barrington family fortune has ended in a tie. The Lord Chancellor's deciding vote will cast a long shadow on the lives of Harry Clifton and Giles Barrington. Harry returns to America to promote his latest novel, while his beloved Emma goes in search of the little girl who was found abandoned in her father's office on the night he was killed. When the general election is called, Giles Barrington has to defend his seat in the House of Commons and is horrified to discover who the Conservatives select to stand against him. But it is Sebastian Clifton, Harry and Emma's son, who ultimately influences his uncle's fate.

-Publisher’s Summary

Inferno by Dan Brown

In the heart of Italy, Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon is drawn into a harrowing world centered on one of history’s most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces . . . Dante’s Inferno.

Against this backdrop, Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle that pulls him into a landscape of classic art, secret passageways, and futuristic science. Drawing from Dante’s dark epic poem, Langdon races to find answers and decide whom to trust . . . before the world is irrevocably altered.

-Publisher’s Summary

Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella

Lottie just knows that her boyfriend is going to propose during lunch at one of London’s fanciest restaurants. But when his big question involves a trip abroad, not a trip down the aisle, she’s completely crushed. So when Ben, an old flame, calls her out of the blue and reminds Lottie of their pact to get married if they were both still single at thirty, she jumps at the chance. No formal dates—just a quick march to the altar and a honeymoon on Ikonos, the sun-drenched Greek island where they first met years ago.
 
Their family and friends are horrified. Fliss, Lottie’s older sister, knows that Lottie can be impulsive—but surely this is her worst decision yet. And Ben’s colleague Lorcan fears that this hasty marriage will ruin his friend’s career. To keep Lottie and Ben from making a terrible mistake, Fliss concocts an elaborate scheme to sabotage their wedding night. As she and Lorcan jet off to Ikonos in pursuit, Lottie and Ben are in for a honeymoon to remember, for better . . . or worse.

-Publisher’s Summary

Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris

 

 A guy walks into a bar and...

From here the story could take many turns. When this guy is David Sedaris, the possibilities are endless, but the result is always the same: he will both delight you with twists of humor and intelligence and leave you deeply moved. 

Sedaris remembers his father's dinnertime attire (shirtsleeves and underpants), his first colonoscopy (remarkably pleasant), and the time he considered buying the skeleton of a murdered Pygmy. 

With Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, David Sedaris shows once again why his work has been called "hilarious, elegant, and surprisingly moving" (Washington Post).

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

NOS4A2 is a spine-tingling novel of supernatural suspense from master of horror Joe Hill, the New York Times bestselling author of Heart-Shaped Box and Horns.

Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country.

Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing – and terrifying – playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.”

Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. He’s on the road again and he’s picked up a new passenger: Vic’s own son.

-Publisher's Summary

Last, but not least, check out these links to reading ideas from all over the internet:

National Geographic’s Best Travel Books for Spring

Publisher’s Weekly – Most Anticipated Books for Spring 2013

USA Today’s List of Books You Should Read In May

Enjoy your reading!

-katie m.

Holocaust in Poland Film Series

Good Morning Readers!

I wanted to give you an update on a film series we have hosted over the last month that is coming to an end. During the month of April we partnered with The Birmingham International Center and The Birmingham Holocaust Education Center to present a free film series.

On Monday, May 6, we will screen the final movie entitled The Passenger (Pasazerka). This 58 minute film released in Poland in 1963 opens with a German matron taking an ocean voyage with her husband. While roaming the deck, she spots a passenger she thinks she recognizes. The passenger had been an inmate at Auschwitz, where Slaska served as a guard. An alternately realistic and illusory study in guilt and retribution, this film was halfway through production in 1961 when its director, Andrzej Munk, was killed in an auto accident. Munk's friends loyally completed the project, bridging a few scenes with still pictures.

The film will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Library's Meeting Room. As with our other films in the series, we will have an introduction prior to the movie led by Dr. Andre Millard, Professor of History at UAB. After the film, Dr. Millard will lead a brief discussion. In the photo below you can see our previous discussion leader, Dr. Andrew Demshuk, Assistant Professor of History at UAB. Thanks to interesting films and lively discussion, we have had great crowds, averaging between 50-75 people at each program!

For more information on this film, please contact us at the Reference Desk at 205-445-1121. We hope you will join us!

-katie m.

American Plays and Playwrights

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, May 1, 2013 at 6:30pm in the Library’s Conference Room and we will be discussing books that have been made into movies.  Additional threads of discussion may include tv shows adapted from books, movies adapted from books, who we’d like to see cast in certain roles, etc.  The sky’s the limit!

Our discussion last evening was about American plays and playwrights.  

The Rainmaker by N. Richard Nash
At the time of a paralyzing drought in the West we discover a girl whose father and two brothers are worried as much about her becoming an old maid as they are about their dying cattle. For the truth is, she is indeed a plain girl. The brothers try every possible scheme to marry her off, but without success. Nor is there any sign of relief from the dry heat. When suddenly from out of nowhere appears a picaresque character with a mellifluous tongue and the most grandiose notions a man could imagine. He claims to be a rainmaker. And he promises to bring rain, for $100. It's a silly idea, but the rainmaker is so refreshing and ingratiating that the family finally consent. Forthwith they begin banging on big brass drums to rattle the sky; while the rainmaker turns his magic on the girl, and persuades her that she has a very real beauty of her own. And she believes it, just as her father believes the fellow can actually bring rain. And rain does come, and so does love. 

Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Other Plays by Steve Martin
Steve Martin is one of America's most treasured actors, having appeared in some of the most popular moves of our time. He is also an accomplished screenwriter who has in the past few years turned his hand to writing plays. The results, collected here, hilariously explore serious questions of love, happiness and the meaning of life; they are rich with equal parts of pain and slapstick humour, torment and wit.

Stories from Jonestown by Leigh Fondakowski
The saga of Jonestown didn’t end on the day in November 1978 when more than nine hundred Americans died in a mass murder-suicide in the Guyanese jungle. While only a handful of people present at the agricultural project survived that day in Jonestown, more than eighty members of Peoples Temple, led by Jim Jones, were elsewhere in Guyana on that day, and thousands more members of the movement still lived in California. 

Emmy-nominated writer Leigh Fondakowski, who is best known for her work on the play and HBO film The Laramie Project, spent three years traveling the United States to interview these survivors, many of whom have never talked publicly about the tragedy. Using more than two hundred hours of interview material, Fondakowski creates intimate portraits of these survivors as they tell their unforgettable stories.

Collectively this is a record of ordinary people, stigmatized as cultists, who after the Jonestown massacre were left to deal with their grief, reassemble their lives, and try to make sense of how a movement born in a gospel of racial and social justice could have gone so horrifically wrong—taking with it the lives of their sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters. As these survivors look back, we learn what led them to join the Peoples Temple movement, what life in the church was like, and how the trauma of Jonestown’s end still affects their lives decades later.

What emerges are portrayals both haunting and hopeful—of unimaginable sadness, guilt, and shame but also resilience and redemption. Weaving her own artistic journey of discovery throughout the book in a compelling historical context, Fondakowski delivers, with both empathy and clarity, one of the most gripping, moving, and humanizing accounts of Jonestown ever written.

Doubt by John Patrick Shanley
In this brilliant and powerful drama, Sister Aloysius, a Bronx school principal, takes matters into her own hands when she suspects the young Father Flynn of improper relations with one of the male students.

GENERAL DISCUSSION: The reader mentioned that “Doubt” is on about 58 pages long and yet a full length play AND feature length film have been adapted from it.  F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, despite its brevity, was also adapted to a lengthy feature film.

Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring
The play, a clever combination of the farcical and the macabre, centers on two elderly sisters who are famous in their Brooklyn neighborhood for their numerous acts of charity. Unfortunately, however, their charity includes poisoning lonely old men who come to their home looking for lodging. The two women are assisted in their crimes by their mentally challenged nephew who believes he is Teddy Roosevelt and who frequently blasts a bugle and yells "charge" as he bounds up the stairs. Matters get complicated when a second nephew, a theater critic, discovers the murders and a third nephew appears after having just escaped from a mental institution. In his adroit mixture of comedy and mayhem, Kesselring satirizes the charitable impulse as he pokes fun at the conventions of the theater.

My Name is Julia by Kathryn Tucker Windham
Kathryn Tucker Windham, who grew up in Thomasville, Alabama, lived in Selma, Alabama.  She told stories in 28 states as well as in Canada and Germany; wrote 26 books in addition to the publication of telling her stories in numerous audiocassettes and compact discs; Recipient of the Helen Keller Literary Award; Recipient of President’s Award for Service to Alabama Libraries; Recipient of the Storytelling Circle of Excellence Award; Recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Storytelling Association. 

Some of her best storytelling ventures have been as an actress…especially in the one-woman she wrote, produced, and acted in, My Name Is Julia, about pioneering social reformer Julia Tutwiler, Kathryn Tucker Windham was also an accomplished photographer, renowned historian, popular public television and radio personality. As a contributor to National Public Radio, Kathryn Tucker Windham won national acclaim for her segments for “All Things Considered.”

Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
This is the book that started it all! The basis for the smash hit Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Gregory Maguire's breathtaking New York Times bestseller Wicked views the land of Oz, its inhabitants, its Wizard, and the Emerald City, through a darker and greener (not rosier) lens. Brilliantly inventive, Wicked offers us a radical new evaluation of one of the most feared and hated characters in all of literature: the much maligned Wicked Witch of the West who, as Maguire tells us, wasn’t nearly as Wicked as we imagined.

The Book of Mormon: The Testament of the Broadway Musical by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone
The biggest Broadway hit in decades—the brilliant brainchild of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and Avenue Q co-creator Robert Lopez—The Book of Mormon is delighting theatergoers nightly with its outrageous irreverent humor and surprising heart. Cleverly designed in the same fun spirit as the show, this official, full-color illustrated coffee table book takes readers behind the scenes with stories from the cast, creators, and crew. Included are the complete book and lyrics to the smash hit Broadway musical, extensively annotated, plus an original introduction by theater critic and author author Steven Suskin about the creation of the show that Rolling Stone declares "is on its march into legend."

The Book of Mormon Script Book: The Complete Book and Lyrics of the Broadway Musical by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone
The only official companion book to the Tony Award winner for Best Musical from the creators ofSouth Park and the co-creator of Avenue Q. Features the complete script and song lyrics, with 4-color spot illustrations throughout, an original introduction by the creators, and a foreword by Mark Harris.

The Book of Mormon, which follows a pair of mismatched Mormon boys sent on a mission to a place that's about as far from Salt Lake City as you can get, features book, music, and lyrics by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone.
Parker and Stone are the four-time Emmy Award–winning creators of Comedy Central's landmark animated series South Park. Tony Award–winner Lopez is co-creator of the long-running hit musical comedy Avenue Q. The Book of Mormon is choreographed by three-time Tony Award–nominee Casey Nicholaw (Monty Python's Spamalot, The Drowsy Chaperone) and is directed by Nicholaw and Parker.

The book includes • an original foreword by journalist Mark Harris (author of Pictures at a Revolution) • an original introduction by the authors on the genesis of the show • a production history • the complete book and lyrics, with four-color spot illustrations throughout.

Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes (Part 1: Millennium Approaches, Part 2: Perestroika) by Tony Kushner
Set in New York City in the mid-1980s, Act One introduces us to the central characters. Louis Ironson is a Jewish homosexual living with his lover, Prior Walter. When Prior contracts Aids, Louis, unable to cope with the strain, moves out. Meanwhile, closeted Mormon and Republican clerk Joe Pitt, is offered a major promotion by his mentor: Roy Cohn. As the play progresses, Prior finds himself being visited by ghosts and angels. Joe, realizing he might be gay, finds himself struggling to reconcile his religion with his sexuality; Louis deals with his remorse and guilt at abandoning Prior; Joe's mother Hannah moves to New York to look after Joe's wife, Harper; and Roy finds himself in hospital, his only companions being his nurse Belize, an ex-drag queen and good friend of Prior, and the ghost of Communist Ethel Rosenberg.

Elephant’s Graveyard by George Brant
Winner of the 2008 Keene Prize for Literature 
Winner of the 2008 David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award Elephant's Graveyard is the true tale of the tragic collision of a struggling circus and a tiny town in Tennessee, which resulted in the only known lynching of an elephant. Set in September of 1916, the play combines historical fact and legend, exploring the deep-seated American craving for spectacle, violence and revenge. 

Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill
Long Day's Journey into Nightis a drama in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1941–42 but only published in 1956. The play is widely considered to be his masterwork. O'Neill posthumously received the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the work.  The action covers a fateful, heart-rending day from around 8:30 am to midnight, in August 1912 at the seaside Connecticut home of the Tyrones - the semi-autobiographical representations of O'Neill himself, his older brother, and their parents at their home, Monte Cristo Cottage.

One theme of the play is addiction and the resulting dysfunction of the family. All three males are alcoholics and Mary is addicted to morphine. In the play the characters conceal, blame, resent, regret, accuse and deny in an escalating cycle of conflict with occasional desperate and sincere attempts at affection, encouragement and consolation.

GENERAL DISCUSSION: Long Day’s Journey Into Night is a brilliant, but inky dark work about a dysfunctional family.  Margaret Atwood’s short story, Stone Mattress, is just as dark, but also equally powerful. 

That's what we talked about.  What are YOU reading?