The Book You Can Read Between Meals Without Ruining Your Appetite

There is a certain and very particular pleasure in reading a book in a day. A sense of achievement. It needs to be a long book, mind, none of your novellas or poetry collections. Fine as they are, they're just, well, too short to really count.

There was once a time when I regularly polished off a book in a day. This was a time before I had children. Or any responsibilities to speak of. I would happily sit in my armchair for hours on end, only surfacing to attend the call of nature or shove a bacon sandwich down my throat. Happy days. I am welling up just thinking about them.

Well, I turned the clock back on Saturday (metaphorically speaking, otherwise it would have been awfully confusing what with actually putting the clocks forward on Sunday) by reading The Hunger Games from start to finish. Go me. Why the rush? Well, we had booked tickets to see the movie on Sunday morning and I was overcome by the urge to read the novel beforehand. This was accomplished by forgoing all social engagements (OK, I had none) and largely ignoring my family (they didn't mind). 450 pages after I started, I was finished. Simple.

A review at this point is hardly worth anyone's time. The books have sold nigh on 30 million copies and the film had one of the biggest opening weekends in cinema history. But I will say this. I found them both to be gripping, genuinely thrilling and intelligent. They pushed the boundaries of what is acceptable as children's or teenage entertainment about as far as they could go. The film achieved what the best adaptations have to - it took out the weaker bits of the book and ensured the additions helped the narrative - and the perfomances, especially that of Jennifer Lawrence, are top notch.

I realise a great many book-to-movie franchises are over-hyped and disappointing. I dare to suggest that this is one rare exception.

And I shall end with this. As soon as we got home from the cinema, Martha picked up Ethan's battered old copy of The Hunger Games and read the first 100 pages or so in one sitting. It is that kind of book.

Comments

[Clare]

Agree whole heartedly. Have you/Ethan read Ender's Game? The other book in our house where all four of us were arguing over whose turn it was to read it next.

[Jackie (Farm Lane Books)]

The Hunger Games is a fantastic read, but I suggest you lower your expectations for the rest of the trilogy - the quality goes downhill fast. :-(