Book News
Scorsese in talks for family film.
Director Martin Scorsese is in talks to direct the adaptation of Brian Selznick’s children’s book “The Invention of Hugo Cabret.” The project would not only reunite him with “The Departed” producer Graham King but also with “The Aviator” writer John Logan, according to the trade publication Variety.
The story centers on Hugo, a young orphan living in a Paris train station during the 1930s, who must solve the mystery of a discarded automata (wind-up robot) left by his dead father. Selznick based the story on Georges Melies, a real-life magician-turned-filmmaker in the early 1900s who collected automata.
Released in 2007, the book is noted for having nearly 300 pages of pictures in the 500-plus page book that mixes the two for a unique effect. Selznick describes the book as “not exactly a novel, not quite a picture book, not really a graphic novel or a flip book or a movie, but a combination of all these things.” The book is interspersed with pictures that replace the text to tell the story.
Scorsese seems to be following the trend of well-known directors adapting children’s books. With Spike Jonze’s “Where the Wild Things Are” and Wes Anderson’s “The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” the track record is fairly impressive so far.
First Lines
Conspirata, by Thomas Harris
Two days before the inauguration of Marcus Tullius Cicero as consul of Rome, the body of a child was pulled from the River Tiber, close to the boat sheds of the republican war fleet.
Such a discovery, though tragic, would not normally have warranted the attention of a consul-elect. But there was something so grotesque about this particular corpse, and so threatening to civic peace, that the magistrate responsible for keeping order in the city, Gaius Octavius, sent word to Cicero asking him to come at once.
Cicero at first was reluctant to go, pleading pressure of work. As the consular candidate who had topped the poll, it fell to him, rather than his colleague, to preside over the opening session of the Senate, and he was writing his inaugural address. But I knew there was more to it than that. He had an unusual squeamishness about death. Even the killing of animals in the games disturbed him, and this weakness — for, alas, in politics a soft heart is always perceived as a weakness — had started to be noticed. His immediate instinct was to send me in his place.
“Of course I shall go,” I replied carefully. “But — ” I let my sentence trail away.
“But?” he said sharply. “But what? You think it will look bad?”
I held my tongue and continued transcribing his speech. The silence lengthened.
“Oh, very well,” he groaned at last.
New York Times top political books
1. Going Rogue, by Sarah Palin
2. Game Change, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
3. Stones Into Schools, by Greg Mortenson
4. Arguing With Idiots, by Glenn Beck, Kevin Balfe and others
5. True Compass, by Edward M. Kennedy
6. Too Big to Fail, by Andrew Ross Sorkin
7. The Imperial Cruise, by James Bradley
8. Half the Sky, by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
9. Where Men Win Glory, by Jon Krakauer
10. Liberty and Tyranny, by Mark R. Levin
