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We're book lovers but also movie fans! When it comes to books vs. movies the winner is always the same. The book. But that doesn't discourage us from watching after reading. And the Oscars time is just perfect timing for seeking new book-and-movie inspirations. Just remember: Read before watching!
What are you reading and watching?
BOOK:
Painfully Rich: J. Paul Getty And His Heirs by John Pearson
When John Paul Getty died in 1976, he was the richest man in the world. This text examines the impact of the Getty legacy and its attendant pressures, family intrigues and destructive greed on the rest of the Getty family.
MOVIE:
The story of the kidnapping of 16-year-old John Paul Getty III and the desperate attempt by his devoted mother to convince his billionaire grandfather Jean Paul Getty to pay the ransom.
Nominated for 1 Oscar.
BOOK:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? BY Philip K. Dick
World War Terminus had left the Earth devastated. Through its ruins, bounty hunter Rick Deckard stalked, in search of the renegade replicants who were his prey. When he wasn't 'retiring' them with his laser weapon, he dreamed of owning a live animal - the ultimate status symbol in a world all but bereft of animal life.
MOVIE:
A young blade runner's discovery of a long-buried secret leads him to track down former blade runner Rick Deckard, who's been missing for thirty years.
Nominated for 5 Oscars
BOOK:
Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman
Andre Aciman's Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. Each is unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, when, during the restless summer weeks, unrelenting currents of obsession, fascination, and desire intensify their passion and test the charged ground between them. Recklessly, the two verge toward the one thing both fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy. It is an instant classic and one of the great love stories of our time.
MOVIE:
In 1980s Italy, a romance blossoms between a seventeen year-old student and the older man hired as his father's research assistant.
Nominated for 4 Oscars.
BOOK:
In Jordan's prize-winning debut, prejudice takes many forms, both subtle and brutal. It is 1946, and city-bred Laura McAllan is trying to raise her children on her husband's Mississippi Delta farm?a place she finds foreign and frightening. In the midst of the family's struggles, two young men return from the war to work the land. Jamie McAllan, Laura's brother-in-law, is everything her husband is not?charming, handsome, and haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm, has come home with the shine of a war hero. But no matter his bravery in defense of his country, he is still considered less than a man in the Jim Crow South. It is the unlikely friendship of these brothers-in-arms that drives this powerful novel to its inexorable conclusion.
MOVIE:
Two men return home from World War II to work on a farm in rural Mississippi, where they struggle to deal with racism and adjusting to life after war.
Nominated for 4 Oscars.
BOOK:
Stronger: Fighting Back After the Boston Marathon Bombing by Jeff Bauman
Jeff Bauman woke up on 16th April 2013, in the Boston Medical Center, groggy from a series of lifesaving surgeries and missing his legs. Just 30 hours prior, Jeff was surrounded by revelry at the finish line of the Boston Marathon cheering on his girlfriend, Erin, when the first bomb went off at his feet. When Jeff awoke, rather than take stock of his completely altered life, he ripped out his breathing tube and tried to speak. He couldn't. So he wrote seven words, 'Saw the guy. Looked right at me,' setting off one of the biggest manhunts in the country's history and beginning his own brave road to recovery.
MOVIE:
Stronger is the inspiring real life story of Jeff Bauman, an ordinary man who captured the hearts of his city and the world to become a symbol of hope after surviving the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
BOOK:
The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made by Greg Sestero,Tom Bissell
In 2003, an independent film called The Room - starring and written, produced, and directed by a mysteriously wealthy social misfit named Tommy Wiseau - made its disastrous debut in Los Angeles. Described by one reviewer as 'like getting stabbed in the head', the $6 million film earned a grand total of $1,800 at the box office and closed after two weeks. Over a decade later, The Room is an international cult phenomenon, whose legions of fans attend screenings featuring costumes, audience rituals, merchandising and thousands of plastic spoons.
MOVIE:
When Greg Sestero, an aspiring film actor, meets the weird and mysterious Tommy Wiseau in an acting class, they form a unique friendship and travel to Hollywood to make their dreams come true.
Nominated for 1 Oscar.
BOOK:
Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool by Peter Turner
A description of Gloria Grahame's last days recalls her past in New York and her eccentric life in a trailer and her life in Liverpool, where the author and his family cajoled, comforted, and wept with the dying Hollywood star.
MOVIE:
Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool
A romance sparks between a young actor and a Hollywood leading lady.
BOOK:
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung
One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed. Harrowing yet hopeful, Loung's powerful story is an unforgettable account of a family shaken and shattered, yet miraculously sustained by courage and love in the face of unspeakable brutality.
MOVIE:
Cambodian author and human rights activist Loung Ung recounts the horrors she suffered as a child under the rule of the deadly Khmer Rouge.
BOOK:
Molly's Game: Inside the Wolrd of High Stakes Poker by Molly Bloom
When Molly Bloom was a little girl in a small Colorado town, she dreamed of a life without rules and limits, a life where she didn’t have to measure up to anyone or anything – where she could become whatever she wanted. She ultimately got more than she ever could have bargained for. In Molly’s Game, she takes you through her adventures running an exclusive private poker game catering to Hollywood royalty like Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Affleck, athletes, billionaires, politicians and financial titans. With rich detail, Molly describes a world of glamour, privilege and secrecy in which she made millions, lived the high life and fearlessly took on the Russian and Italian mobs – until she met the one adversary she could not outsmart: the United States government.
MOVIE:
The true story of Molly Bloom, an Olympic-class skier who ran the world's most exclusive high-stakes poker game and became an FBI target.
Nominated for 1 Oscar.
What are you reading and watching?