cover image Books Into Film: The Stuff That Dreams Are Made of

Books Into Film: The Stuff That Dreams Are Made of

Robin H. Smiley. Capra Press, $29.95 (275pp) ISBN 978-0-9722503-3-7

Smiley's essays on cult and classic books and the films that were based on them is a labor of love; affectionately and carefully written, it should thrill the hearts of book and film buffs alike. The intelligent and personal essays are knowledgeable, but never pedantic, opinionated, but never narrow. As William F. Nolan writes in his foreword, one cannot help disagreeing vociferously, if occasionally, with some of Smiley's evaluations, but that is part of the fun. Smiley's essays contain marvelous facts and insights, such as: ""Nobody sets out to be a geek; geeks are made, not born. Nightmare Alley, the unremitting and darkest of noirs, is about nothing less than how to be a geek."" Other gems include the fact that there were over five million copies of The Old Man and the Sea in print before it was even published, thanks to Life Magazine, which ran the full text in a 1952 special issue, and the connoisseur's wit of the following revelation: ""It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows Howard Fast's work to learn that the idea for Spartacus came to him while he was in prison in Mill Point, Arkansas, for contempt of congress."" Smiley, the founder and publisher of Firsts: the Book Collectors Magazine, in which these essays first appeared, offers us a book best read slowly, to be savored for the memories it can reclaim for us, as well as the obscure treasures to which it can point the way.