kiwigirl reads. . . .

The Great American Read from PBS is an eight part series exploring the power of reading. 100 books were chosen as the top 100 most-loved novels in America. PBS conducted a survey asking Americans to name their favorite fiction novel and around 7,200 people participated.  You can find out more about the series, books and how they were chosen on the official website . Here is a list of the 100 books chosen: 1984 - George Orwell A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving A Separate Peace - John Knowles A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho Alex Cross Mysteries (Series) - James Patterson Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie And Then There Were None - Agatha Chistie Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery Another Country - James Baldwin Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand Beloved - Toni Morrison Bless Me, Ultima - Ruldolf...

For those of you who don't live on the internet or twitter like I do you may not have heard - they are making ' The Mortal Instruments ' book series by Cassandra Clare into a TV series called ' Shadowhunters . Wait! Wasn't that a movie? I hear you say. Yes they made it into a movie staring Lily Collins and Jamie Campbell Bower but if you actually went and saw it you will know the problem. It was just not good. They certainly tried but so much was left out and a lot was not explained or explained too much. I was left very disappointed.  Because it did not do very well, plans for the follow up movie have been pushed back and it looks like it will never happen now. Can't say I'm that worried about the decision. What they have done is decided to start again from scratch on TV. The show is from ABC Family and they are casting at the moment. Most of the leads have been announced - here is the link to the Facebook page if you are interested - https://www.f...

I wanted to share the new trailer for the Morganville Web Series that will be coming out soon. I just watched it and it looks really good. Very true to the books. I think that by going the Kickstarter and webseries route, Rachel Caine, the author was able to keep more of a hand in what was happening. Usually when these books get sold to movie producers they change things and very often screw up the casting just to get someone who has a name that will sell. I really enjoy Rachel Caine's Morganville Vampire series of books. I think it was a great fresh idea with good characters and plot lines. I have not finished the series yet but will do in the future. In the meantime I will be checking out the series as soon as it becomes available. You can also go to the website  http://www.morganvilletheseries.com/ to find out more about the series. A while ago I reviewed the first book in the series, you can check it out here . 

There are a few movies coming up that are based on supernatural/fantasy/science fiction books that I wanted to mention.  Books from these genres especially the YA ones are now regularly becoming fodder for the Hollywood engine as more and more of them either make it to the big screen or to TV (I guess we can thank Twilight for that - if for nothing else).  I generally prefer the TV series because they are longer so get to tell the story in more depth but I also think that movies often stick more to the plot of the book than TV does.  This is probably for the exact same reason why I like TV more, it's length - when you have to fill so much more time you often have to add filler characters and story lines in order to keep it interesting and not overwork your main actors too much. I really like seeing books that I have read come to life, I do prefer it with ones that are a bit older and have had time to reach a good audience   I don't really see the point o...