November 25, 2008

Counterpoint/Soft Skull Books that Would Make Great Movies, 2009 Edition

It's time once again for our annual review of the Winter 2009 catalog from Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press. We poured over the latest offerings from their always stimulating selections and the following are the books we think would make great reads and that we'd love to see as films one day. (Frankly, with a catalog this good, you'd be hard-pressed to find a book that wouldn't make a decent film adaptation.) --Kim

Sex, Death & Oysters
by Robb Walsh
Aside from the sex and death, Robb Walsh's non-fiction book about oysters might not seem at first glance a match made in movie heaven. But consider Charlie Kaufman's film Adaptation--which was an adaptation about trying to write a screenplay based on a Susan Orleans book about orchids--then get back to us.

Darwin's Garden by Michael Boulter
Johnny Depp was born to play the role of Charles Darwin. Imagine him in period costume puttering around the grounds at Down House, including the heated greenhouse where the father of evolution "conducted experiments on orchids and primulas" while having to deal with the ordinary sturm und drang of family life. Andrew Davies (Bleak House, etc.) would direct.

I Wouldn't Start from Here by Andrew Mueller
Last King of Scotland director Kevin Macdonald could probably handle the uber-tense moments brought on by clashing ideologies, landmines, and mercenaries in this non-fiction road trip ("it's like a Bond film but with much, much less sex"), but could he do it with a sense of humor? That we don't know... we do know that we're intrigued by this "gonzo recounting of disaster in the modern world."

Milk, Sulfate, and Alby Starvation by Martin Millar
Guy Ritchie? Alfonso Cuaron? Edgar Wright? Your guess is as good as ours, but more importantly, the Milk Marketing Board has taken out a contract on Brixtonite Alby Starvation's life and we want to know what happens next! Apparently Neil Gaiman is a fan of Martin Millar and List calls Milk... "a work of rare genius and truly cult."

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