Best Films From Books

Book beast

by Jane Ciabattari

Jane Ciabattari’s work has appeared in Bookforum, The Guardian online, NPR.org, Salon.com, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review, among others. She is a vice president and former president of the National Book Critics Circle and author of the short-story collection Stealing the Fire. Recent short stories are online at The Literarian, KGB Bar Lit, Verbsap, Literary Mama and Lost Magazine.

One of the hot properties at Cannes was the film version of Lionel Shriver’s bestselling We Need to Talk About Kevin, but it’s the rare book that makes a successful film. 


The next novel to watch as a film is We Need to Talk About Kevin, based on Lionel Shriver’s chilling Orange Prize-winning novel, and directed by Lynne Ramsey. A spooky Tilda Swinton plays a mother who wonders what, if any, responsibility she has for her teenage son’s murderous rampage, in the film, which had its premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival (early reviews called it “superb”). Ramsey cowrote the script with Rob Festinger, who also adapted Andre Dubus’ short story “The Killings” into the knockout 2001 film In the Bedroom, which was a hit at Sundance and nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Full story and five masterpieces of fiction that also worked as films, with varying degrees of tinkering by the film-makers - link here.