Top 10 Movies Based On Books

10 - THE NOTEBOOK

Synopsis: This movie focuses on an old man reading a story to an old woman in a nursing home. The story he reads follows two young lovers named Allie Hamilton and Noah Calhoun, who meet one evening at a carnival. But they are separated by Allie’s parents who dissaprove of Noah’s unwealthy family, and move Allie away. After waiting for Noah to write her for several years, Allie meets and gets engaged to a handsome young soldier named Lon. Allie, then, with her love for Noah still alive, stops by Noah’s 200-year-old home that he restored for her, “to see if he’s okay”. It is evident that they still have feelings for each other, and Allie has to choose between her fiancé and her first love.

I can honestly say that I have watched it over 10 times and I have cried every single time .

The movie was based on "The Notebook" by Nicholas Sparks - a short novel, so you could read it in one day if you had time.

9 - SCARFACE


Synopsis: The movie is a remake of the 1932 classic. The 1983 version follows cuban refugee, Tony Montana and his close friend Manny Ray, and together they build a strong drug empire in Miami. Of course Montana must deal with the hardships of this type of buisness. And as Montana’s power begins to grow so does his ego and his paranoia.
John’s Thought: Which line was better? “Say hello to my little friend” or “first, you get the money…”? You can buy the book on Amazon


8 - DIE HARD

Synopsis: Tough New York cop John McClane finds himself in a tight situation when an office building in Los Angeles is taken over by terrorists. Apart from himself, everyone else in the building - including his wife - is held at gunpoint while their captors spell out their demands. The F.B.I. are called in to survey the situation, but John McClane has other plans for the terrorists…

I am sure you didn't know Die Hard is ia based on "Nothing Lasts Forever" by Roderick Thorp.

7 - THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS



Synopsis: Clarice Starling, a young intelligent FBI trainee, has been sent to the Batlimore state hospital for the Criminally insane to interview an inmate Dr. Hannibal-the cannibal- Lecter. A Brilliant renowned psychiatrist turned infamous Psychopathic Serial killer. She must match wits with Lecter -who has the darkest of all minds- and trust him to give her clues in the search for “Buffalo Bill”. a nick name for a loose,unknown, unstoppable Pyschopathic Serial killer.

The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris, is even better than the successful movie. Like his earlier Red Dragon, the book takes us inside the world of professional criminal investigation. All the elements of a well-executed thriller are working here--driving suspense, compelling characters, inside information, publicity-hungry bureaucrats thwarting the search, and the clock ticking relentlessly down toward the death of another young woman. What enriches this well-told tale is the opportunity to live inside the minds of both the crime fighters and the criminals as each struggles in a prison of pain and seeks, sometimes violently, relief.

6 - THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM

Synopsis: Bourne is once again brought out of hiding, Jason Bourne is now hunted by the people who made him what he is–legendary assassin. Having lost his memory and the one person he loved, he is undeterred by the barrage of bullets and a new generation of highly-trained killers. Bourne has only one objective: to go back to the beginning and find out who he was.
I think The Bourne Ultimatum (Bourne Trilogy, Book 3) was the best one from the series.

5 - THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER

Synopsis: This film tells the story of Captain Marko Ramius, the skipper of the Soviet Union’s newest nuclear sub. Jack Ryan of the CIA gets involved in a tense, tangled hunt for this sub, when Ramius defects, taking the “Red October” with him. The story is an action packed techno-thriller.
The Hunt for Red October is a 1990 film based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Tom Clancy.  The movie was directed by John McTiernan and stars Sean Connery as Captain Marko Ramius and Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan.



4 - SCHINDLER’S LIST

Synopsis: The true story of Oscar Schindler, a German businessman who owns a factory. He witnesses the horrifying visions of the Holocaust and the toll it takes on the Jewish people. Eventually, he creates a list of over 1100 Jews whom he saves from death. This movie won 7 oscars. It moves you and changes your thinking about life. I think Spielberg will remain an immortal filmmaker through the work he put into this film. You can buy the book from Amazon:

3 - THE LORD OF THE RINGS

Peter Jackson, with funding from New Line Cinema, produced three movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". Filmed entirely in New Zealand, and starring actors such as Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins), Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn), Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Liv Tyler (Arwen), Orlando Bloom (Legolas), and Christopher Lee (Saruman), the movies approximately follow the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings with which most Tolkien fans are familiar: "The Fellowship of the Ring" (December 19, 2001), "The Two Towers" (December 18, 2002), and "The Return of the King" (December 17, 2003)

2 - THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION


Synopsis: After the murder of his wife, hotshot banker Andrew Dufresne is sent to Shawshank Prison, where the usual unpleasantness occurs. Over the years, he retains hope and eventually gains the respect of his fellow inmates, especially longtime convict “Red” Redding, a black marketeer, and becomes influential within the prison. Eventually, Andrew achieves his ends on his own terms.
I love this movie so much because the story is my favourite Stephen King short story ever. I felt they did a great job in staying true to the plot and storyline - it was almost as I had imagined it would be when reading. The movie was tremendous.



1 - THE GODFATHER

Synopsis: Vito Corleone is the aging don (head) of the Corleone Mafia Family. His youngest son Michael has returned from WWII just in time to see the wedding of Connie Corleone (Michael’s sister) to Carlo Rizzi. All of Michael’s family is involved with the Mafia, but Michael just wants to live a normal life. Drug dealer Virgil Sollozzo is looking for Mafia Families to offer him protection in exchange for a profit of the drug money. He approaches Don Corleone about it, but, much against the advice of the Don’s lawyer Tom Hagen, the Don is morally against the use of drugs, and turns down the offer. This does not please Sollozzo, who has the Don shot down by some of his hit men. The Don barely survives, which leads his son Michael to begin a violent mob war against Sollozzo and tears the Corleone family apart.

This movie is an adaptation of Mario Puzo's book - probably the single most important and influential film ever made. Starring Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, Al Pacino as Michael Corleone, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Mario Puzo assisted with writing the screenplay and with other production tasks. The film grossed approximately $134 million and won various awards, including three Academy Awards, five Golden Globes and a Grammy and is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time. The sequel, The Godfather Part II won six Oscars, and became the first sequel to win the Oscar for Best Picture.

Interesting...

Three artists from germany are showing an installation in which a robotic arm transcribes, on scrolls of paper, the entire Bible in calligraphic text,

Entitled 'bios [bible],' the installation purpose is to "correlate two cultural systems which are fundamental for societies today -- religion and scientific rationalism," according to the artists.

I am sure this video will start a mini-storm of discussions in study groups meet and in online message boards. The Good Book itself is available online in its entirety and in every conceivable translation and language.


via Walyou.com

Free Online Library

Today I was surfing with StumbleUpon and I found this great website: ReadPrint. The website offers thousands of free books for students, teachers, and the classic enthusiast like me. To find the book you desire to read, start by looking through the author index.

The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch

I don't know how to start this time. At one point in my life, I spent a couple of months in a hospital, being pretty close to folks who were dying. I discovered one general truth: people die in the same way they live. A person approaches his or her dying reveals a great deal about the character traits, values, dispositions, and attitudes with which they walked in this movie we call living.

If you can spare 1 hour of your life to watch this lecture Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008) gave before a packed McConomy Auditorium I promise you will not regret it!

Many times in our lives, we know what we should be doing but don't always do it. The truths that Randy says in his book are things we should be doing NOW instead of waiting for a terminal diagnosis. Many of us may have terribly difficult circumstances in our lives that are hard to live with. But if a man with a terminal diagnosis can find happiness and productivity with a prognosis of pancreatic cancer, then we ALL can.
Even if you are not a book reader, please read this one. I can almost guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Twilight Saga

With the recent release of "Twilight" - the movie (trailer here), I would like to recommend you the book(s), because I think the movie didn't live up to it.

There were a lot of high expectations & book readers like myself were very disappointed. I believe that to people who have not read the book it might be a good movie but I was not so happy with it. I felt that there was no feeling in the characters. I mean when you read this book it changes you, you fall IN LOVE with the story I did not fall in love in the movie.

For those who did not read the books or see the movie, The Twilight Saga: Slipcased is a popular four-novel series about the love story of Edward Cullen, an impossibly handsome and virtuous vampire, and Bella Swan, a kind of “everygirl”.

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous story The Great Gatsby is widely regarded as one of the greatest English-language novels of the 20th century.

Reading it, I've learn that often the wanting of something is better than actually having it. Furthermore, one true friend is worth infinitely more than a multitude of acquaintances. There are the books you read, and then there are the books that change your life, and this book changed mine.

The book was adapted into screen first time in 1926, but the most famous version, starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, was made in 1974. The movie won 2 Oscars. I loved it because it's a faithful adaptation for this great book.

William Shakespeare quick facts

I adore Shakespeare because he does beautiful things with language. Maybe it is because I started reading drama, history, and poetry when I was young. Some of my friends said that Shakespeare appeals to people of certain intelligence. I do agree with that. You need some linguistic and literary intelligence to fully understand him.

I don't think one can just read him and say "I like ...or dislike him". It takes a bit of studying for one to make a statement like that. 

So, here are some quick facts about Will:

• No one knows the actual birthday of Shakespeare! April 23rd has been generally used - the same day as St. George's Day, the Patron Saint of England
• In his will, Shakespeare left his wife (Anne Hathaway) his "second-best" bed.  She was 8 years older than William Shakespeare
• William Shakespeare and his company built TWO Globe Theatres!
• Richard II and King John are the only two Shakespearean plays containing no prose. 
• Shakespeare was said to have enjoyed playing the part of the ghost in Hamlet.
• With 1770 lines, The Comedy of Errors is the shortest Shakespearean play. 
• Shakespeare's Father, John was a money lender! William was also involved in Money lending!
• The oldest existing copy of a complete American-made feature film is that of Richard III, a 1912 silent movie based on Shakespeare's play. It was produced by M. B. Dudley Amusement Company. 
• Some researchers claim that Queen Elizabeth I wrote Shakespeare's plays. Few scholars take this claim seriously. 
• We do not really know what Shakespeare looked like! No portraits were painted of Shakespeare whilst he was still alive! 
• Shakespeare's original grave marker showed him holding a bag of grain. Citizens of Stratford replaced the bag with a quill in 1747, perhaps in anticipation of the tourists who would come to see the final resting place of the world's greatest wielder or quills. 

I was able to find the 1912 Richard III Feature Film on Amazon.

Link: Shakespeare on Wikipedia 

Free Offline Dictionaries

This is a collection of multilingual dictionary sorted by categories that helps you learn the vocabulary of another language progressively. Click here for download 

5 Classic Novels

Why classic books? Because they have stood the test of time. The second reason is they give you different “lenses” to look through. Most of them are relevant to our time and it's most likely to be relevant even to the far future. If you have the time to read these classic novels you, you will find an ideal way to expand your horizons and catch up on classics. So, without further announcements here are top 5 classic novels along with the Amazon links. I have chosen the cheapest ones I could find on Amazon:

1. Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes)


2. Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift)


3. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)


4. Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens)


5. The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

Fix yourself a drink, get comfortable and Start Reading!

The Northern Clemency (Hardcover)

Sunday Times said about this book that it is “Brilliantly styled . . . Hensher is fascinatingly good on how social transformation manifests itself in the textures, colours and manners of a culture . . . The Northern Clemency is not only extremely funny, but also deeply humane. [It] is a virtuoso display of sympathy: Hensher seems to dwell as easily and evocatively in the mind-world of a 10-year-old schoolboy as in that of a 59-year-old stroke victim or a middle-aged estate agent.”

Philip Hensher's The Northern Clemency begins at the perimeter of a late-summer party, amidst a din of neighbors gossiping one moment and navigating awkward silences the next. But once you encounter the Glover family–in particular, their languidly handsome teenage son Daniel–there’s no turning back. Hensher’s style (which earned him a spot on the Man Booker Prize shortlist) is among the many qualities that made this novel Amazon BestSeller. The language is so beautiful and brutally honest that you’ll find it hard not to underline your favourite passages, particularly those about the city of Sheffield, whose families witness "the last phase of its industrial greatness" in 1974 and begin to experience the intensifying class wars that ensue. The Northern Clemencybrings out the universal secret we all keep inside us: the family makes no sense, and yet makes all the sense in the world.

Hello World!

I love reading books . . . and magazines . . . and everything that's worthing my time. I am not against Internet, but this "online generation" sometimes forget all the great classics books that exist in libraries, bookstores and possibly their parent's bookshelves. Youtube is not culture and classics are not just for the schoolroom. 

So, if are you looking for books that are entertaining, intelligent, heart rending, captivating and written so well that you will believe they are true you are in the right place

It's hard to say any book will appeal to everyone, but the books I will recommend you have been hits among most of the people I know.