Eat, Read, Watch

A few months ago, my book club (meaning CCC and myself, and YES, two people CAN constitute a club) read The Other Boleyn Girl. It was pretty good (not fabulous...notice it's not on the list at the right), but still we're greatly looking forward to the release of the movie starring Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johannsen, and Eric Bana this December. The Children of Men followed (again, pretty good, not great) and continuing that Book-to-Movie theme, we recently joined friends in reading The Painted Veil, by W. Somerset Maugham and followed that reading with a themed dinner, book discussion and movie screening. My take:

The Book: is beautifully written. It's not a long book, but the writing was lovely and very concise; a fine point put on setting and the main characters fully-developed and dimensional. I won't get into the plot but it is a wonderful book about a selfish, shallow, early 20th century British woman and the beginning of her spiritual journey. I thoroughly enjoyed every page and hope to read more of his novels.

The Food: P.F. Chang's lettuce wraps. A bit heavy on the water chestnuts, but overall, a success.

The Movie: One of the few examples of enjoying a movie despite having read the book first. Generally, I hate a movie if I've read the book. Earth-shattering in it's cliché-ishness, I know. The screenwriter / director / producer...whoever, changed enough details (and the right ones) to make this a good movie regardless of whether you've read the book or not. Edward Norton and Naomi Watts were great and the cinematography was lovely. It wasn't FABULOUS, but it was a very enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.