Authors Electric

 Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. One of my favourite books on the radio is the reading of Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time . This slim novel about Richard III is often a repeated reading on Radio 4 Extra and is accompanied by The Princes in the Tower by William Walton. Well worth a listen when it comes up. What I love is it is just a straight reading of the original book. I can see the point of adaptations but I want them to keep to the spirit of the original author’s intent. I don’t want adaptations “because we can”. That’s not a strong enough reason to meddle. I loved the Peter Jackson film adaptation of The Lord of The Rings , but there is no way The Hobbit has enough in it to justify being more than one movie. Just as there should be a good reason for a story (and any character being in said tale), there should be a good reason for adapting a work.  Every so often one of my flash fiction pieces is broadcast on an internet radio ...

What book (or books) would you like to see on film/TV? Do you have a favourite book you’ve thought, perhaps for years, that you’d love to see made into a film or TV drama/ series? Maybe something you loved as a child – or that new psychological thriller you read last week? Apart from the fact that you like it, can you say why your choice would make great cinema or TV? (Or a radio play or a theatre play, come to that. Or let’s cast the net wider – a musical? A game?) Don’t worry about the practicalities. It seems possible to film just about anything these days, with cgi and the like. Allow yourself to dream (go back to your earliest memories if you like. Andy Pandy – the Movie? Maybe there is one – I haven’t checked!). Some books, it’s pretty clear, were only ever meant to be books. There have been some disastrous dramatisations that probably should never even have been attempted. I’ll leave you to make your own list. Some books are improved by being put on screen. A num...

Last month I started to count down my top ten books or series that have "stayed" with me (whatever that means) throughout my life . I may have bitten off more than I could reasonably swallow. It was a bit of an undertaking, and I only got through the first two. These books aren't going to read themselves, so let's cut the introductory fluff and get right to it then: 8. The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien As far as I'm concerned, these are the best covers ever bound. As a kid, I loved the Rankin/Bass cartoon version of The Hobbit . I watched it every time it came on television. This was so long before DVD's, mind you, that we didn't even have VHS yet. This is how we DVR'ed back when the world was young and dinosaurs ruled the earth. This meant that I could only watch it once a year if I were lucky, so for the weeks before it aired, I was the best behaved kid you ever saw. I'd eat all my vegetables and possibly ...