Adaptations: From Short Story to Big Screen: 35 Great Stories That Have Inspired Great Films

This item was new and a wonderful collection of short stories adapted into films, shipped and received promptly. Surprisingly rich collection of stories from a broad range of selections, for both the literature and film lover. Highly recommended!

While the meat of this book is the collection of logically categorized short stories, the introductions to each section are where “Adaptations” really shines. Stephanie Harrison provides the reader with an excellent understanding of the circumstances and timeframe in which each story found its way to the next medium. Her attention to the relationships between the authors and directors and their cooperation (or lack thereof) goes a long way in illustrating the difficulty of creating a successful film, and I came away with a new appreciation for the craftsmanship involved in reimagining a story. The stories themselves are well selected and well organized. Harrison assembled a neat cross-section of the industry, with stories ranging from science fiction to–much to my surprise–comics. Particularly clever was the decision to open the book with a section entitled “The Directors: Translators, Magicians, Collaborators, and Thieves.” By beginning with several stories of wildly varying style, Harrison introduces the reader to a range of directorial and authorial methods, giving them a broader context with which to evaluate the rest of the book than would otherwise have been available if she had simply jumped straight into stories-by-genre. All things considered, “Adaptations” is a well-polished book, rich with valuable original content to compliment the stories the reader came for.

This is a required text for college English and the price is awesome.

I use this book in a high school Film and Lit class along with "Reading in the Dark: Using Film as a Tool in the Classroom".Mainly, this book is a collection of short stories (by genre) that were converted into movies. It is perfect for a Film & Lit class or could be used in a limited way in a high school English class. From Spielberg to Hitchcock to Multicultural films, this book allowed me to find stories for my class to read and this compare/contrast with the movie.

I purchased two copies as Christmas gifts for my Sons-in-law. They were well received and passed around for others to have a glance. One copy came to a complete stop as a recent college grad, had to read about her "most favorite movie ever'! All three generations had positive comments and are looking forward to reading about and then watching, once again, some of these great films.

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The book arrived in great condition. I used it for an English class, and found the stories to be very entertaining.

Interesting in that it allows film lovers to see what preceded the screenplay and the subsequent film.Any film buff will enjoy this book.

Das Buch ist interessant und logisch aufgebaut. Ich habe nach genau so einem Buch gesucht. Obwohl leider kaum allgemeine Theorie zu "adaptation" im Werk zu finden ist, liefert es doch gute Einblicke in die Theorien zu den einzelnen Kurzgeschichten!Leider ist bei meiner Ausgabe der Einband beschädigt, daher ein Stern abgezogen

Interesting purchase from a film student. I mostly enjoyed the sci-fi parts, most of the rest were based on very old film references and got boring even for a film student. Not that it was useless, but 200 pages of 50's films references just didn't get to me. Info very reliable though. 3stars.