But High Fidelity in Chicago? Granted, they had some street cred with so-British-it-hurts Stephen Frears, but when you think of Chicago, what kind of music comes to mind? Blues, maybe jazz, perhaps a little polka, plus a few bands who rose out of the neighborhood. It doesn’t have nearly the ties to music that London does, with the British Invasion and the Punk movement and emo and all the indie bands and singer songwriters for which the city is known, especially the West End. They’re equal in grittiness, absolutely, but not so much in musical lineage. And wasn’t music, not Rob Fleming (or Gordon in the film), the real central character?

You’re right, though, who’d believe John Cusack and Jack Black as born-and-bred Londoners?

Anyway, yes, movie versions rarely seem as good as the actual book – and I bet it does have to do with people other than the author meddling with the story. Plus, too, you can do a lot in a book that you can’t do on the screen, so stories get changed for that reason too.

But not all movie versions are bad – in fact, I really like the Breakfast of Champions movie (“…Mr. Rhythm-Mover”), and I thought the grittiness of Chicago substituted very well for the grittiness of London in an Americanized High Fidelity (besides, I don’t think John Cusack would be believable with a London accent).

And, it can go the other way, too. For instance, I liked The Princess Bride movie more than the book (movie Buttercup came off as a much stronger character, which made me like the entire story more). So, I guess it all depends on what you like.

But I think you’re right, often movie adaptations take a book and swing with it one way or another.

What’s interesting is how prominent tv and movie ads are, especially in relation to books. So if you see an ad (or, pardon me, *advert*) for a movie made from the book, it leads you to make inferences on the book which are sometimes unjust.

For instance, if you saw ads for Hi Fidelity, or saw the movie itself, you might be shocked to read the book and find that it takes place not in Chicago but in London, and that that location is a vital part of the book. Or if you saw Breakfast of Champions, you might think the book would be as awkward and crappy as the movie when, in fact, it’s very fluid and enjoyable. (Or at least I thought so.)

I worked with a Scottish elementary school teacher once who brought the Harry Potter books over and read them to the kids before they hit the states, and the kids were suddenly excited about reading. She said, though, that the books being made into movies was dreadful because, even though more kids were interested in them, it took away their mental images and imaginations, and slanted all the books toward the director’s vision rather than the child’s.

Maybe we’re just as susceptible to that bias as adults.

Which is, in and of itself, interesting – it would be interesting to take stock of how different movie-versions are from the books they are portraying. I went looking around and found a few websites (below) listing books made into movies, but none of them directly compare the two versions. So if you’re looking to start a niche website, there’s an idea for you.

• MCPL’s “Based on the Book”
• Bookreporter.com’s “Books into Movies”
• ASL’s “From Books to Movies”

It won the Pulitzer, and not long after was made into a movie (HBO?), and the ads for the movie had these very somber images of people and places, with Snow Patrol’s “Run” (a great, but plodding and depressing, song) playing in the background. So I suppose I was expecting the book to be more like the ad. Isn’t it funny what an impact marketing can have on you, even beyond the product they’re pitching?

The programs haven’t been finalized yet, as we had wait to see which book would be chosen. In general, though, we’re planning on a series of events lasting throughout 2007, with the goal of one event a month. Some of the ideas we’ve come up with so far are:

• A visit from the author
• Book discussion groups every third month
• A “diner day” at the library (since the book centers around a diner – I’m hoping for a bacon cooking contest)
• A Maine-related event, since the book takes place in Maine
• Perhaps a showing of the movie
• And whatever else we can think of

Another town in Massachusetts has already used Empire Falls for a One Book program, so we’ll also be contacting them for additional ideas. But if you can think of anything, please let me know.

And the winner? Empire Falls (yay, Maine). The final vote counts were:

• Empire Falls: 561 votes
• The Kite Runner: 483 votes
• House of Sand and Fog: 254 votes

That is 1298 votes total, which isn’t too bad (well, it’s a 4% voter turnout for this town of about 35,000). We haven’t come up with a program schedule for next year yet, but I will certainly be talking about this more in the future.

I can’t wait to find out what they choose! You need to tell us both the top three and the final selection.