Don_, thank you for this information.This wil fill some of my time also on a cold day with my cup of tea.***Suzanne

I've gotten to the point of allowing myself to put down a book (and never pick it up again) if it just doesn't resonate with me fairly early on. There's not a set number of pages I'll read before making the call - I just kind of know it when I've reached the "not gonna work" point. I'll admit I feel slightly guilty when I stop reading a book, but am understanding (and trying to accept) the fact that it ain't all gonna gel. I can't think of a specific example right now, but I can say that I don't have a lot of patience for smarmy romance novels. I guess the same would hold true for rom-com, chick flicks as well. Most of them bore me senseless. (Katherine Heigl makes me want to run screaming from the room.) I prefer offbeat, quirky flicks. I adored Borat - can't remember laughing so hard at a movie in a long time, so maybe that says something about my crassness. ;-) The one movie I remember feeling physically ill while watching was Videodrome with James Woods. It came out in the early 80s and was one of the first movies I'd seen with gory special effects, and I just recall how it literally turned my stomach.

PS-I have confirmed that my recollections were correct. Someone at a newsgroup answered my question.

Vee, thanks for the link to the Gallup poll. Whew! It will take me a while to assimilate it. As for "the sad state of affairs": I understand now. I tied it to the wrong paragraph. :-) Woodnymph, yeah, I realize that I'm in the minority about the film of To Kill a Mockingbird. I figure my love of the whole book makes me too critical of the adaptation, which picks out and gives emphasis to a particular part. Which reminds me: June, if you watch the Olivier/Oberon Wuthering Heights, don't expect to see the whole story -- you will only get part of it. Otherwise, it's a quite fascinating interpretation: telling, I think, of what adaptors of the 1930s thought was important and what subsequent audiences have taken in. Woodnymph, I saw The English Patient film first, and then read the book. While the "essence" of the book might have been captured in the film, the two are so different! I like the film better. Another essence capturer, I think, is The French Lieutenant's Woman. Oh gosh, yes, the Polanski-directed Tess is superb, I think, and very faithful. Actually I like nearly all of the film versions of Hardy's books, particularly Tess and Far from the Madding Crowd -- Alan Bates will always be my Gabriel Oak. I also liked most of the Merchant-Ivory productions. I certainly like their adaptations of Forster, though I find Forster's writing insufferably Edwardian. I do like some Edwardian writing but Forster's was even more uptight than most. Knowing his bio and the times, I can understand why he wrote the way he did but the priggishness still exasperates me. Speaking of another Forster -- Margaret Forster, that is -- and Alan Bates: I adore the 1966 adaptation of Forster's Georgy Girl. I loved that book so much as a teenager that I determined I was to live in London. When this subject comes up, I always have to mention two of my favorite short story adaptations: John Huston's "The Dead" (from Joyce's Dubliners) and "Babette's Feast" (from Dinesen's Anecdotes of Destiny). June, you're right: there are so many good films that owe their genesis to a book.