Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library Reader Advisory Blog: Coming to the Big Screen This Fall

This fall is full of literary gems that have been adapted for the big screen! Which one(s) will you be watching?

Jack Kerouac's classic novel of the great American road trip, On the Road, will star Kristen Stewart and Steve Buscemi.

In Lloyd Jones' Mister Pip , while war rages on in Papua New Guinea, a young girl becomes transfixed by the Charles Dickens classic, Great Expectations, which is being read at school by the only white man in the village. The movie adaptation stars Hugh Laurie.

Bestselling novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel will be directed by Ang Lee. It is the magical story of Pi Patel, the son of a zookeeper, who during a move from India to Canada via ship, finds himself adrift in the Pacific with a zebra, hyena, orangutan, and a 450 lb tiger.

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Genre: Adult Non-Fiction
Rating: 5 out of 5

"Being Mortal is about the limitations of what modern medicine can provide for people as their lives draw to a close. Gawande argues that the objective of medicine should not merely be treatment and survival; medical care should also ensure dignity in death and having control over one's final moments. He argues that instead of aggressively fighting the inescapable realities of aging, we should ask the hard questions of ourselves and our loved ones -- What makes life worth living? When should we try to extend our lives, and when should we choose a better quality of our remaining days over extending their quantity?

This book is difficult to read. Not because of the way Gawande writes -- his style is highly engaging, and he never lapses into excessively scientific jargon or overly simplistic explanations -- but because of the tough subject matter. Gawande draws on his own experiences as a doctor and peppers his book with honest and humane stories of his patients, friends, and family; the stories he tells make the book more accessible, and also more heartbreaking. (And that's not a bad thing.)

No one likes to think about their loved ones', or their own, impending mortality. But it's important to have these hard conversations, because as Gawande says, "endings matter." - Amanda

Coming to the Big Screen This Fall

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