Dark Materials

Yesterday I blogged about the fact that on Thursday I was stuck in the office, alone, completely cut off from the outside world (can you tell I'm still scarred by the incident?) and dropped into the post the aside that I read a novel. That novel happened to be the rather fine and entertaining new novel by Stephen McCauley called "Alternatives To Sex".

Let's ponder that title for a moment before we move on shall we?... I'm guessing it's ironic, because I'm stumped for an alternative. Not one. Nup. Nada. Anyone?

Oh, and yes Stephen McCauley wrote the wonderful novel "The Object Of My Affection" that was then turned into a less than wonderful film by the same name. Saved only by the appearance on screen of the very delicious Paul Rudd. (As seen below in a still from the movie, accompanied by an unknown mystery woman, probably an extra.)



Although, I prefer to think of him more like this (slightly NSFW if you work for a Big Christian Charity, but the rest of you should be fine).

Anyhoo, having finished said book I was in the market for another book (desperately so, otherwise I would have been reduced to organising and perhaps even alphabeticising the rubber gloves/disposable aprons/incontinence pads cupboard). Only a block and a half from my new office is a surprisingly good second-hand bookstore and I purchased the 'young adult fiction'* novel "Northern Lights", the first in the "His Dark Materials" series. Loving it.

I know it's kind of a futile debate, comparing one author to another, but although I enjoyed for the most part the Harry Potter books, this is much more my style. Darker. Gothic-y.

So the novel is particularly in my forebrain at the moment, given that I'm around two-thirds of the way through it. I was very pleased to spot, via Web-Goddess, that there are a bunch of sneak peek pics online of the upcoming movie. Looks good, pretty close to the way I imagined the scenes to look. Hopefully it will follow the recent tradition of thoughtful adaptations and stay close to the book. The book isn't huge and is quite well paced, so should hopefully not require significant trimming to fit into a cinematic format. Cool.

* That's me, right? Young adult? I chose to believe so, I mean, if they are going to bandy those terms around without specifying their parameters then it's open to interpretation, if you ask me.