What is a Good Book?

What is a good book?

A good book to you might not be a good book to me, so what makes a really, truly entertaining book?

Pace?
If a book has pace, you wiz through it, so surely a page turner is a good book?

Well, not always.

Take Robert Harris's An Officer and a Spy as an example. I have lamented the virtues of this book in previous posts and I stick by what I said then, it is a page turner, and a most excellent read, but if you look at Dan Brown's Inferno, also a page turner with lots of action, historical references and famous places, you could be fooled into thinking the same, but you'd be wrong.

Dan Brown's research is second to none, but his well used characters are starting to wear a bit thin now, and another megalomaniac getting their comeuppance at the hand of Robert Langdon is getting a bit tiresome.
Length then?
We all know how important size is, but again, don't be fooled. 
Some of my all time favourite books are less than two hundred pages long. H.G.Wells, The War of the Worlds and Richard Matheson's, I am Legend, spring to mind, and at the other end of the spectrum there's Stephen King's, The Stand and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels, which extend to many hundreds of pages, but which I love in equal measure.
The King, Queen and Prince of all books for me, is J.R.R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, a book so sublime that I will take it from the shelf every so often, blow of the dust and read random passages; weird!
Genre then?
No, still barking up the wrong tree. You can see from of my shelfie photo above, that teen-fiction mixes with old classics, horror with Sci-Fi, hardback with soft and they are in no particular order. Short books mix with long, old books rub binds with new, so, what it a good book?

There is a saying in the photographic community, that the best camera in the world, is the one you have with you, and I think this applies to books too. 
Yes there are duff ones, and some you won't get; some are poorly written, some too long, but when I leave the house every morning, I know how lost I'd feel if I didn't take my long, new, old, short, horror, young adult, classic, hardback, book with me. So pick something, anything before you leave for work, go on holiday, sit down with a cup of tea, and I guarantee it will be better than having no book at all.

From page to screen. (and how they get it soooooo right, but only sometimes)

Take a book, a good book, maybe your favourite book, turn into a film and what do you get?

Well, it can be a bit of a lottery. 

Some books transfer to film (or television) well, some do not. 

Ever read Jaws?

I haven't and I never will because I love the film so much. I've even got the t-shirt; yes really I do have a t-shirt, and I only think reading the book would spoil my childhood and adult memories, of Steven Spielberg's masterpiece. 

Other fantastic films made from books include all the Harry Potter's, The sixth film did disappoint me at the end after Dumbledore was killed and the battle between the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters in the book, wasn't depicted on screen, but that aside, I love them with a vengeance. 
The Lord of the Rings? 
Fabulous throughout, outstanding depiction of a literary masterpiece.

War of the Worlds. (The Tom Cruise film, not the naff 1950's one) I had my doubts when I heard it was going to be set in the modern day; for those who don't know, the book was written and set in the later part of the Victorian era, but what a great film, Speilberg again. 
I thought The Perks of being a Wallflower, was an excellent film, great acting and interesting storyline but when I looked at a sample of the book and saw that it was written as a diary, I backed off. 
I liked both the book and the film version of Robert Harris' Enigma, and I'm looking forward to seeing the film adaptation of Tom Rob Smiths excellent Child 44, but some films I just don't want to watch. A Clockwork Orange for example, mad book, must be a crazy film, but not for me and Stephen King films, with the exception of The Shinning, why can't they make a decent Stephen King film?

So the moral to this post is tread with care and watch what you wish for. They might make a great film from your favourite book, but they might make a pile of crap. 

Inspiration for the day goes to Professor Stephen Hawking for discovering some stuff that will hopefully make the world a better place!