I chanced upon this TV movie that I liked of the same title, ably played by Skeet Ulrich and Keri Russell. I learned that it was based on a book. I have a penchant nowadays of tracing movies to the books they’re based from. More and more, I notice these things as I’ve opened a bookstore. Not every book gets a movie tie-in cover.
The Man in the Brown Suit
By Agatha Christie
I don’t know why it took me so long to pick up Agatha Christie. She is like your plucky aunt who can say everything, except her voice is in the young heroine on board a luxury liner to South Africa, a fat noble man, a dashing secret agent, and a charming socialite only too eager to help in more exciting affairs.
Eat a Peach by David Chang
David Chang of Momofuku fame - There is no doubt he is a brilliant man, daring to the point of being offensive, passionate, aggressive, intense, irreverent, submitting to noone. I can see how these qualities in him led only to his climbing success.
My Year Off by Robert McCrum Robert McCrum was forty-two when he suffered a debilitating stroke which left his left side totally paralysed, his speech impaired, and his sense of self radically altered. He was then editor-in-chief at Faber and Faber. I liked how he described his brush with death: “I have not lost my respect, of course, but I have lost my fear. I know what it feels like to be carried away, helpless, towards oblivion and finding by great fortune the current slow and swirl towards the bank, leaving me sprawled, quite helpless, on a new shore.” It reminds me of John Donne’s Death, Be Not Proud. Or that 1 Corinthians passage, “O death, where is thy sting?...
