The Book was Better by Louise Wilder

Yes, book lovers cry! Hollywood never gets it right – they gloss over crucial moments, the dialogue sounds bizarre and the characters never look like they’re supposed to.

But what about Jaws or The Godfather? These films are so much better than the potboiler novels they came from. And then there are some perfect adaptations. Doesn’t every reader’s heart sing when they watch Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility?

In this rollicking adventure through the towering heights and unplumbed depths of book to screen adaptations, Louise Willder, the critically acclaimed author of Blurb Your Enthusiasm, uncovers what makes a good adaption, how some can be so bad, and why we insist on telling the same stories over and over and over.*

*See: Pride and Prejudice 1940, 1980, 1995, 2005, 2027, Bridget Jones’ Diary, Austenland, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Fire Island, Lost in Austen, Bride and Prejudice…

A Girl's Guide to Spying by Holly Webb

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✦ BLURB ✦

When Phyl is dragged along to the Girl Guides by her younger sister, Annie, the last thing she expects is the adventure of a lifetime. Then her Guide captain offers her a job as a messenger for MI5. Phyl is desperate to help the war effort and is thrilled to be working with spies.

But she can’t seem to do anything right in the eyes of the grumpy Major Warren. When he suddenly disappears, Phyl and Annie suspect that he may in fact be a double agent. The two sisters must solve the mystery of his whereabouts, before it’s too late. Luckily their friends from the Rose Patrol are ready to help…

The Haunted Wood by Sam Leith

Do you remember the first time you fell in love with a book?

Maybe you tumbled down a rabbit hole, flew out of your bedroom window, or found the key to a secret garden. And in the silence of that moment, your whole life changed forever.

The stories we read as children are indelible in our memories; reaching far beyond our childhoods, they are a window into our deepest hopes, joys and anxieties. They reveal our past – collective and individual, remembered and imagined – and invite us to dream up different futures.

In a pioneering history of the children’s literary canon, The Haunted Wood reveals the magic of childhood reading, from the ancient tales of Aesop, through the Victorian and Edwardian golden age to new classics. Excavating the complex lives of our most beloved writers, Sam Leith offers a humane portrait of a genre and celebrates the power of books to inspire and console entire generations.

Happy Head by Josh Silver (mild spoilers in review)

We are in an epidemic. An epidemic of unhappiness.

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Friends, here is the good news: HappyHead has the answer.

When Seb is offered a place on a radical retreat designed to solve the national crisis of teenage unhappiness, he is determined to change how people see him and make his parents proud. But as he finds himself drawn to the enigmatic Finn, Seb starts to question the true nature of the challenges they must undergo. The deeper into the programme the boys get, the more disturbing the assessments become, until it’s clear there may be no escape...