Good Reads: Get to Know Your Fall Book Adaptations

My Week With Marilyn (Nov. 4)

Screenwriter: Adrian Hodges (based on My Week with Marilyn and The Prince, The Showgirl and Me by Colin Clark)

Film Synopsis: Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) chronicles life on the set of The Prince and The Showgirl, the 1956 film which starred Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) and Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams).

Critical Response to the Book: Critics hailed Clark's titular memoir as filled with "immediacy and charm" and "touching," while The Prince, the Showgirl and Me was called hilarious.

Fun Fact: The Prince, the Showgirl and Me was turned into a 2004 television documentary in England; Clark passed away in 2002.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (Nov. 18)

Screenwriter: Melissa Rosenberg (novel by Stephenie Meyer)

Film Synopsis: Edward and Bella get married, have crazy butter-colored sex and wind up expecting parents. Jacob does stuff too.

Critical Response to the Book: Fans and critics alike were mix with the end result of Breaking Dawn, some calling it "sexist and tacky" with others saying the final Twilight book was "wild and satisfying."

Fun Fact: Breaking Dawn sold six million copies when it was released in 2008, which still placed it behind both Twilight and New Moon in book sales for that year.

We Need to Talk About Kevin (Dec. 2)

Screenwriters: Lynne Ramsay and Rory Kinnear (novel by Lionel Shriver)

Film Synopsis: After Kevin (Ezra Miller) goes on a school-shooting spree, his mother Eva tries to deal with the grief and guilt by writing to her estranged husband (John C. Reilly).

Critical Response to the Book: Per Publishers Weekly, Shriver's book is the "most triumphantly accomplished by far" in the sub-genre of post-Columbine fiction. That's great, but you probably don't want to read this one as a bedtime story.

Fun Fact: The last film Ramsay wrote and directed was Morvern Callar in 2002.

Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy (Dec. 9)

Screenwriters: Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan (novel by John Le Carre)

Film Synopsis: During the Cold War, a semi-retired intelligence officer (Gary Oldman) is forced to uncover a Soviet mole within the Circus.

Critical Response to the Book: Off the charts. As TIME magazine wrote, Le Carre is "the premier spy novelist of his time. Perhaps of all time." Also, your dad is probably a huge fan of this one too.

Sad Fact: Screenwriter Bridget O'Connor died in 2010 from complications due to cancer.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Dec. 23)

Screenwriter: Steve Zaillain (novel by Steig Larsson)

Film Synopsis: A journalist (Daniel Craig) and computer hacker (Rooney Mara) team-up to find a woman who has been missing for 40 years.

Critical Response to the Book: Mixed. The New York Times criticized its boring midsection and silly denouement, though the Washington Post called it remarkable.

Disturbing Fact: The original Swedish title of the book was Men Who Hate Women.

We Bought a Zoo (Dec. 23)

Screenwriter: Aline Brosh McKenna and Cameron Crowe (memoir by Benjamin Mee)

Film Synopsis: Following the death of his wife, a man (Matt Damon) moves his family to the Southern California countryside and starts to rebuild an old zoo. Scarlett Johansson, Thomas Haden Church, Elle Fanning and Patrick Fugit co-star.

Critical Response to the Book: Publishers Weekly found Mee's memoir meandering and unfulfilling, while the Christian Science Monitor wrote that Zoo gets bogged down in too many details.

Fun Fact: And there's that news van again. Aline Brosh McKenna -- who also wrote I Don't Know How She Does It -- is a co-screenwriter on Zoo. This is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your love for Devil Wears Prada.

War Horse (Dec. 28)

Screenwriters: Lee Hall and Richard Curtis (novel by Michael Morpurgo)

Film Synopsis: About a young boy (Jeremy Irvine) who enlists in World War I to save his horse.

Critical Response to the Book: Generally positive, especially for younger readers. Also: "Horse lovers will be on the edge of their seats from the beginning to the end," wrote Children's Literature. Woo!

Fun Fact: Morpurgo's novel has already been produced as a Tony Award-winning play.

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