100 Places to See After You Die: A Travel Guide to the Afterlife by Ken Jennings

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

After the initial reaction of “Wait, what?” I found this to be a clever and engaging book.  Jennings, best known for his gig as host of Jeopardy!, has compiled many, many different versions of an afterlife from many different sources. Of course, mythology and religion lead the list, with Jennings describing many different beliefs from Native American to Norse, but he moves on to other versions of the afterlife as depicted in books, films, television, music, and more.

It’s a fun book to dip into at any point, though a handy index is provided in case you’d like to find out what the afterlife is like in, oh, Marvel Comics or the movie Beetlejuice. Books include not only Dante’s The Divine Comedy but The Five People You Meet in Heaven  and The Lovely Bones. Visions of the afterlife are also depicted in shows like The Twilight Zone  and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Jennings even remembers My Mother the Car.

While this is a lighthearted book, I enjoyed a lot of the miscellaneous information Jennings tosses in, such as titles of several stories in which ghosts think they are still alive, or the origins of the image of death as a carriage ride. (Emily Dickinson I knew, but the Coen Brothers?) That’s the real delight of this book: the connections Jennings makes across centuries and genres. Well, that and his sense of humor.

This paperback edition comes with a bonus: the “Afterlife Planner,” a flowchart which starts “You have died.  Sorry for your loss.” Then you decide what you want to do next—stay on earth or move on? Each decision brings up more decisions, until you reach a destination page number that describes the afterlife you have chosen. For example, if you want to stay on earth but not in your old house, you have several choices from there. Pick-up baseball? You’ll find yourself in Iowa in Field of Dreams. Want to move on and face judgement? From whom? God or gods? Are you Klingon? Then go to page 234 for descriptions of Klingon afterlife in Sto-vo-kor or Gre’thor.

Whether you want just read selections or entire categories or play “Choose Your Own Afterlife Adventure,” this light-hearted book is a good way to spend an hour or maybe an eternity.

Conclave by Robert Harris

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

The Pope is dead.

It falls to Cardinal Lomeli, as Dean of the College of Cardinals, to manage the Conclave, the gathering of Cardinals from all over the world, who will select the next leader of the Catholic Church.  Lomeli is grieving, both from the loss of the Holy Father and the loss of a man who was his friend. Their last meeting had been a difficult one; Lomeli was questioning his own abilities to carry out his duties, but the Pope had refused his request to resign, much to Lomeli’s dismay.  There’s no time to ponder the question as the cardinals gather and factions soon form.  Lomeli is committed to being fair and not allowing his personal views to influence how he manages the Conclave, but sometimes that is a difficult matter indeed. This is especially true after he hears that the late Pope may have dismissed a cardinal in the hours just before his death, a cardinal who is one of the leading candidates to be the new Pope.  With all the cardinals sequestered and access to the outside world limited, Cardinal Lomeli is faced not only with the question of how to investigate but whether he should even try for fear of jeopardizing the voting unfairly.

To confuse things even more, a new cardinal appears, one that appeared on no one’s list because he was appointed in secret.

I came to the book after watching the movie.  The movie is a visual treat: I was mesmerized by some of the images.  There were amazing performances from the cast, which included Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini.  The Oscar nominations were well deserved.

Since the movie did win for “Best Adapted Screenplay,” I was curious to see just how closely it followed the book and the answer is very closely indeed, with much of the dialog coming directly from the book. There were, of course, a few changes such as Cardinal Lomeli in the book becoming Cardinal Lawrence in the film but the changes were mostly very minor.  Reading the book did clarify a few things for me and gave me a deeper understanding of what I was shown.

It’s been called a political thriller, which means it relies on characters’ ambitions and motivations rather than car chases.  Since my preferred reading material is character driven rather than action oriented, this suited me just fine.  Thriller fans might find both book and movie to be too slow for their tastes. Every book (or movie!) is not for every reader.

The book allows us greater insight into Lomeli’s character, but the film does an excellent job of conveying some of his struggles visually:  his weariness, his frustration, and his faith. There’s a good map showing where the important scenes take place, from the Sistine Chapel to the Casa Santa Marta where the cardinals are housed during the Conclave. With the recent passing Pope Francis, both book and movie gave me some idea of the process and a mental image of how the real Conclave will unfold.

The library owns copies of both book and movie.

Read It Before You See It!

There are a lot of books being made into movies or TV shows these days. Here are some of the ones getting a lot of buzz:

 

Shogun by James Clavell: This story of an Englishman making his way in Japanese feudal society was a surprise bestseller in 1975.  The 1980 mini-series starred Richard Chamberlain and was a blockbuster success. Main does own a copy of it on DVD.  The new F/X version is also a ratings winner and is receiving much praise for its careful recreation of a place and time.

Another 1975 book getting a second mini-series treatment is Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot.  This tale of vampires invading a town was first filmed in 1979; the second version should air later this year on MAX.

This year’s Academy Award went to Oppenheimer, the story of the scientist who helped create the atomic bomb. It was based on the book American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. It also netted acting Oscars for Cillian Murphey and Robert Downey, Jr.  The library owns a DVD copy of the movie.

Fool Me Once is the latest Harlan Coben book to be turned into a film. Maya’s nanny cam captures an image of her husband, Joe, playing with their daughter. The catch is that Joe was murdered two weeks earlier. . . . The filmed version is on Netflix.

Dune 2 is still in theatres, but if you want to know what happens next you may want to read Dune by Frank Herbert. This is the first in the series which continues with Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse: Dune. The series (and prequels to the series) have been continued by Herbert’s son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson.

A Russian count is placed under arrest in a hotel during the Revolution.  Ewan McGregor stars in  A Gentleman in Moscow based on the book by Amor Towles. It will air on Paramount+ and Showtime.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris has been a very popular book at the library. Based on a true story of the man who was tasked with tattooing numbers on Jewish prisoners and who falls in love with one of them, the mini-series is scheduled to air on Peacock.

Ripped From the Headlines: The Shocking True Stories Behind the Movies' Most Memorable Crimes by Harold Schechter.

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Schechter is the author of several true crime books, including Hell’s Princess:  The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men, which Christy reviewed previously.  Obviously, he has a way with titles.

This book is a collection of 40 essays listed by movie which have some connection to a true crime case.  Some are more easily connected than others, but all are fascinating.  Some are well known and obvious—Psycho and Ed Gein, for example—while others are less known.  I was intrigued to see Arsenic and Old Lace listed, so of course I had to read that one first and found that there was a case of a woman murdering boarders by poison, though she wasn’t nearly as charming as Cary Grant’s aunts in the film.  I didn’t know that Scream was influenced by Danny Rolling’s murderous rampage in Florida.

Some of the movies listed are sensational and with only a slight connection to a crime such as Eaten Alive!

Usually the essay begins with a recap of a movie, and then describes the real life crime behind it. Some of these have some graphic detail which I could have done without, but for the most part they are restrained and informative.  I was more interested in the movie aspect, and for that part Schechter offers both description and a bit of a critique.  There were a lot of movies I was vaguely aware of—I recognized titles, such as Butterfield 8—but really didn’t know much about the movie itself.  Now I want to see Double Indemnity, a movie written by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler, and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred McMurray.  I’m also curious about M, the 1931 Fritz Lang movie based on a child murderer which was a breakthrough role for Peter Lorre.  I wish I had read this book before stumbling on Shadow of a Doubt, the Alfred Hitchcock thriller starring Joseph Cotton; it would have given the movie an added dimension.

While one movie is highlighted, there are some crimes which inspired several films.  Some of those are also mentioned in sidebars.  The Leopold-Loeb crime was the basis for both the movies Rope and Compulsion, for example, and the notorious Burke and Hare were the basis for The Body Snatchers, The Doctor and the Devils, and at least two entitled Burke and Hare.

There is an index, very handy for checking which Hitchcock films made the list, or if a specific movie shows up in a chapter headlined by a different film.  I was surprised by how often Theodore Dreiser’s name came up. His book An American Tragedy (based on a real crime) influenced more than one film.

I intended only to browse this book, but ended up reading the whole thing.  The short chapters made it easy to put down and pick up again later. Overall, I would say this is more a book for film buffs than for true crime people, but that’s just my perspective: I read it more for the movie info than the murders.  Catalogers seem equally conflicted: our copy is in the true crime section, while another library has it in their film section.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Reviewed by Laura

            I began this book knowing that there was a movie involved that I might want to watch at a later date. I never dreamed I would end up liking the movie more than the book! Yes, I am one of THOSE people. The annoying ones who spout everything the movie got wrong and telling you how the book is SO much better! I even have a shirt that says, “Don’t Judge a Book by its Movie.”  And now here I am telling you to watch the movie. The world must truly be at an end. But first, let me tell you about the book.

            I loved the concept of the book, the story that it told. Bernadette is a wonderful mother with a teenage daughter who actually loves and confides in her. She is an intelligent woman, once an internationally known and respected architect, who is married to Elgie, a major player at Microsoft. Sounds like the perfect family, doesn’t it? These people must have it all together. Since she’s an award-winning architect, their house must be something worthy of a huge spread in a stylish magazine. Only their actual life is nothing like that. Bernadette no longer works, no longer uses her great talent to design amazing buildings. In fact, no longer goes out in the world at all unless it is an absolute necessity. Her home is falling down around her ears, with actual blackberry sprouts pushing through the floor boards. Her amazingly talented husband spends the majority of his time at work. Her extremely bright and personable daughter, Bee, attends private school and works toward being accepted to Choate, the boarding school of her choice. Bernadette hovers in her home using an online personal assistant for everything she doesn’t absolutely have to do herself. She sets an alarm to go and pick up her daughter from school, draping a scarf around her head and perching oversized sunglasses on her nose. She avoids contact with other parents at all cost and never volunteers for school functions as is expected. In fact, she and her husband have their emails removed from the school list so as not to be disturbed by the flotsam and jetsam that regularly arrives to annoy. Bernadette’s, oh so rare, interactions with her fellow parents are hilarious. She refers to them as gnats (annoying, swarming creatures). Interactions with a neighbor whose son also attends the school are some of the best passages in the book.

            Things come to a head, however, when Bee reminds her parents that they had promised to reward her history of perfect grades with a gift of her choice. Break is coming up and she has decided to choose a family trip to Antarctica. You heard that right; the family will travel to the ends of the earth while Bernadette struggles to travel to the end of the street. Naturally, this upsetting occurrence wreaks havoc with Bernadette’s already fragile psyche. Her personal assistant is called upon to work night and day ordering supplies as well as seasickness medications. Bernadette supplies all of her credit card numbers as well as personal information to ease the process, and yes, it turns out about as badly as you might expect. Then, Bernadette disappears. Exciting, right? Lots of intriguing plots and subplots, so why in the world did I not enjoy the book?! The story was fabulous and interesting, but almost the entire thing is told through a series of emails, letters, and reports from an amazing conglomeration of different people. I didn’t enjoy interpreting almost the entire story in this form. It became hard to read and sometimes confusing. It becomes apparent that all of this is information Bee has gathered to help her in the search for her mother, but the only part I really enjoyed was the daughter’s narrative, which was quite good. The entire time I was reading the book, I was thinking, “This would probably make a good movie.” I read all 352 pages because it was intriguing and I DID want to know how it all turned out. This book would have been awesome had it been told in a different format. A narrative from each of the main characters, relating their side of the story, or the daughter telling the complete story with a sidebar of the emails and the like added in, but not forming the main bulk of the story.  

       So there you have it, the reason I liked the movie better than the book was the writing style. The movie was fun and interesting and told the story in a much more enjoyable way. Yes, I was still annoyed waiting for incidents from the book to appear that never did. But overall, I found the story much more enjoyable as told through the visual presentation, rather than the verbal. And yes, it still pains me to say so.

Note:  We do have both book and movie at Bristol Public Library.

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

Reviewed by Christy Herndon

I can’t remember the first time I became aware of the movie The Exorcist but I know I’ve been scared to watch it for a long, long time – turning the channel if clips were shown during horror movie countdowns, listening wide-eyed as my big, tough uncle claimed it was the only movie to ever bother him. It wasn’t until this year, at 27 years old, I finally decided to watch it for Halloween. However, before I did that I wanted to prepare myself by reading the book first.

    There is probably not much that can be said about the Exorcist (film or novel) that hasn’t already been covered extensively so I can only bring you the perspective of a nervous newbie. For the uninitiated, the basic premise revolves around popular actress Chris MacNeil and her very sick 12 year old daughter Regan. Well, Chris thinks she’s sick anyway. That’s the only logical explanation for Regan’s sudden bizarre behavior: cursing profusely, moving heavy furniture around by herself, even urinating on the living room carpet during a dinner party. Chris spends the first half of the novel consulting with doctors hoping they can find an explanation, physically or mentally, but to no avail. Regan’s behavior steadily gets worse throughout the novel until finally irreligious Chris comes to the difficult decision to contact an exorcist.

    First and foremost: this novel is scary. I’ve overheard plenty of millennial horror fans discuss their dislike for the movie, dismissing it as “boring”, and I’m sure some bookworms would feel the same way about the book. But I didn’t see it that way at all. It takes its time getting to the “good stuff” but does so with page-turning suspense and a few creepy moments sprinkled throughout. I really felt for the characters - especially Chris and all the torment she was going through just to find out what was wrong with her daughter. Then things got even worse! There were a few scenes that turned my stomach a bit but overall I was surprised by how much I liked the novel.

    I refrained from reading it before bed though just to keep my sanity. (Oh, and I liked the movie too! Even if I wasn’t sure I was going to get through it.)