Books that made the Oscars
Now that the Oscars are over, I wanted to share some of the books that made the Oscars.
Slumdog Millionaire
At the top of the list is one of the most inspiring movies of 2008, “Slumdog Millionaire.”
From the book review
Vikas Swarup’s spectacular debut novel opens in a jail cell in Mumbai, India, where Ram Mohammad Thomas is being held after correctly answering all twelve questions on India’s biggest quiz show, Who Will Win a Billion? It is hard to believe that a poor orphan who has never read a newspaper or gone to school could win such a contest. But through a series of exhilarating tales Ram explains to his lawyer how episodes in his life gave him the answer to each question.
Slumdog Millionaire trailer
Read reviews and purchase Slumdog Millionaire on Yowzas!
Read about it on Amazon: link
Milk
The brief story of Harvey Milk is sad and tragic. Read about his impact on civil rights in the book “The Mayor of Castro Street The Life and Times of Harvey Milk.”
From the book review
Known as “The Mayor of Castro Street” even before he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Harvey Milk’s personal life, public career, and final assassination reflect the dramatic emergence of the gay community as a political power in America. It is a story full of personal tragedies and political intrigues, assassinations at City Hall, massive riots in the streets, the miscarriage of justice, and the consolidation of gay power and gay hope.
Milk trailer
Read reviews and purchase Milk on Yowzas!
Read about it on Amazon: link
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Brad Pitt takes an F. Scott Fitzgerald book to the big screen with “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”
From the book review
The curious tale of a man who begins his life as an apparent septuagenarian and grows younger every year – much to the bewilderment and consternation of he and his family.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button trailer
Read reviews and purchase The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on Yowzas!
Read about it on Amazon: link
The Reader
Last, but not least, is Kate Winslet in “The Reader.”
From the book review
Originally published in Switzerland, and gracefully translated into English by Carol Brown Janeway, The Reader is a brief tale about sex, love, reading, and shame in postwar Germany. Michael Berg is 15 when he begins a long, obsessive affair with Hanna, an enigmatic older woman. He never learns very much about her, and when she disappears one day, he expects never to see her again. But, to his horror, he does. Hanna is a defendant in a trial related to Germany’s Nazi past, and it soon becomes clear that she is guilty of an unspeakable crime. As Michael follows the trial, he struggles with an overwhelming question: What should his generation do with its knowledge of the Holocaust? “We should not believe we can comprehend the incomprehensible, we may not compare the incomparable…. Should we only fall silent in revulsion, shame, and guilt? To what purpose?”
The Reader trailer
Read reviews and purchase The Reader on Yowzas!
Read about it on Amazon: link
