"If they made a film of the book of the memories with Bobby De Niro & Demi De Moore"

I am ill.
It sucks.

"Oh it's not as good as the book".
These are words I have never spoken.
I dare say quite a few of you have & I have heard people speak variants of that phrase as I have exited the cinema.
I have never said it though, because as we have previously explored, I don't really do books.
However, stick a man on aeroplanes, put him in departure lounges & cage him in a hotel room & soon enough you'll find him with a book in his hand.
I actually read 5 books during my time in Lyon, but it's the first of these I'm going to talk about.
The book in question, I enjoyed immensely. I found myself making time to read it. Something I'd never done before. I actually recall saying at one point "I'm gonna give the pub a miss & have an early night with my book", which of course ended up being nothing like an early night because I just couldn't bloody stop reading. I was well & truly gripped.
When I finished the book I was gutted, simply because it had ended & I didn't want it to.

I'm guessing that the book world has many similarities with my natural habitat, the music world. That occasionally the No.1 bestseller is a genuinely good work by an author who has honed their skills over several works (like say U2 or Coldplay) but it's also not uncommon for the No.1 to be put in it's position by people who don't usually read books, just as in the music world many an album gets to number 1 without having the talent or spark of genius that you'd expect it to. Perhaps this quote (taken from Mark's blog) by James Blunt's producer may explain better; "I suppose it's just that I'm also aware of a wildly popular form of commercial music that appeals to the broad swathe of people who don't actually like music that much, or for whom at least music isn't particularly important, beyond its function as something to fill in life's sonic background."

I suspect that the book I'm talking about probably falls into this catergory in the eyes of regular bookreaders. I have seen it treated with disdain on a couple of occasions.
Of course, I'm talking about "The Da Vinci code" by Dan Brown.

I really, really enjoyed reading this book, much more than I thought possible.
Irrespective of whether the whole Mary Magdalene thing is utter hokum or not, I found that I was drawn in to every twist & turn of the story. I liked the central characters, I liked the pace of the read, god damn it I loved that book.

I've since read all Mr. Brown's books. I liked "Angels & demons" even more than the Da Vinci code (The whole science vs religion thing really floats my boat). The other 2 were ok but, again using music as my frame of reference, it was like listening to "Violator" & "Songs of faith & devotion" first & then checking out "Some great reward" & "Black celebration". Much the same flavour just not as tasty.

It's not long now till "The Da Vinci code" hits the silver screen. I will go to see it. I need to see it. I really was not pleased when I heard that Tom Hanks had been cast as Robert Langdon. I have nothing against the Hanksmeister at all (Forrest Gump being one of my favourite films, in which our Tom plays a blinder) it's just I didn't picture Robert like that when I read it. I expect this must be a popular gripe for those of you who read books a lot & then see them turned into films. It's just not right, is it? I really don't know who I would've chosen to play the part because to me Robert Langdon is Robert Langdon. And that's that.
Nor would I have chosen Sir Ian McKellen, I saw someone much shorter & rounder for the part of Leigh Teabling.

Still, all that said I will no doubt shuffle myself over to the multiplex come May to watch the movie.
I will also no doubt exit the cinema saying "Oh it's not as good as the book".