Presently Chekhov's Three Sisters. Fourth in a collected edition I have of his plays. Good stuff, both the insights into pre Revolutionary Russia and the psychological portraits are fascinating.

Pillowface - Kristopher Laymon.

Definitely a Richard Laymon inspired book. I haven't seen the movie yet, but the author wrote and directed Psycho Holocaust, the three baddies in the book are the three baddies in the movie. The movie isn't an adaptation but works like a prequel to the book, or the other way around, I forget.

I finally finished Stephen King's It. It was really good, although a little too long. The new movie looks good, but there's a scene near the end of the book that I guarantee will not be included. Too bad.

Just started Picnic at Hanging Rock. The book came with the Criterion blu-ray.

Love the book. But yeah, there will never be a scene like that shown outside the book.
I'm looking forward to the movie. The miniseries was too watered down, too much changed, Tim Curry I've never found scary in the role, too hammy. And that awful stop motion spider thingy.

I haven't seen the miniseries since I was a kid, but I remember thinking it was just okay.

That's cool that Picnic at Hanging Rock came with the book. I've thought for a while now that certain movies should come with the book due to the book being out-of-print. Which I see was exactly the case when Criterion did that.

I'm still reading James Bond books. In order, not that it matters too much, like the movies. There's only a few brief mentions of the previous book in the beginning before moving on to the next mission and girl.

Live and Let Die started out like the movie and had a lot of the same scenes. About halfway through, it became the first half of what they used for a different movie and the ending was used as the ending for yet another movie. Confusing enough? I guess they probably did that more than once, spread out parts of a book over a few movies. It was just kind of a shock for me to go from Casino Royale, which was almost exactly like the 2006 version of the movie, to that.

Moonraker was next. It was almost nothing like the movie and doesn't even mention outer space, but that's probably for the best since the movie isn't very good. The book also doesn't have the same characters outside of the main villain and the regulars like Bond and M.

Now I'm in the middle of Diamonds Are Forever. It too is only vaguely similar to the movie, but it has more of the same characters than Moonraker. Since I'm not crazy about the movie version of Diamonds either, I'm not bothered by that. In fact, I'm glad the books are mostly different from the movies. Not sure I'd be as interested in reading them if they played out exactly like the movies.

That's cool. I've only read like 3 or 4 of them. I should get a hold of them all and read them through.

I find them to be quick reads. Feel like I can have the Fleming era of the series finished by at least the end of summer. I'll probably try the John Gardner books after. It sounds like he basically continued the series where Fleming left off.

I think it pays off to read them in order as you are doing. You can see over the first few books what a toll everything starts to take on Bond. I stopped reading them after From russia With Love - but I've always intedned to go back and read them and the Gardner books that continued the characters.

Modesty Blaise is another good spy read from that era.

I like how the books go into things like why Bond treats women the way he does. In the movies, it's usually just because he can, with his brief marriage only referenced or mentioned a couple times.

Never heard of Modesty Blaise. Kind of surprised since the series went on for so long.

There's a lot more psychological depth in Fleming's Bond books than they put into the movies. I enjoy that too. Bond is much more of a tortured soul than the movies would lead you to believe.

Modesty Blaise was published as both a comic series and as novels, both credited to the same author - I've only read the novels. There have also been a couple of movies made, but although both are enjoyable neither did justice to the character.

They seemed to be trying to add some depth with Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, but of course, they dropped the ball with Quantum. The books are a refreshing read to me actually. Much more consistent in style than the movies, which I marathoned not that long ago. A style the movies started losing long ago.

I was reading about the movies. Sounds like they're pretty far from the author's vision. Too bad, because with all the material out there between the comics and novels, they could have probably cranked out a pretty big movie series to rival Bond.

I enjoy the Bond movies - or most of them anyway. Casino Royale showed great promise, and Daniel Craig was well cast, but with the follow-up films they seemed to want to retell Bond's story in a typical modern cinema mode, inventing back story for the characters and so on. I did like Judi Dench as M, and thought that Skyfall was quite exciting. Most of the Bond films since Connery have followed the same pattern - there's one good to great one followed by a rather mediocre one. You are right about the books being more consistent.

I feel pretty much the exact same way as you about the movies, especially the Craig era. Thought Casino Royale and Skyfall were solid. Hate Quantum though and Spectre's definitely mediocre. Parts of it were decent, but that twist with Blofeld pisses me off. Completely unnecessary. As you said, typical modern cinema back story.

I do wonder about the short story of Quantum. Not far from it now and I can't imagine it being anything like the movie.

I haven't read Quantum - forgot it was even a Fleming story. I think it would have been in my next book if I had kept reading. Just checked and it's in For Your Eyes Only which is where I stalled when I was reading them in sequence. So I've read the first seven novels.

"...that twist with Blofeld pisses me off..." Exactly the sort of stuff I was talking about. Too bad because Spectre showed some promise in the first half, better than the film of Quantum anyway.

Depraved 2 by Bryan Smith. Enjoyed the first one, this one is also a fun read. They read like Laymon. Small towns run by backwoods cannibals, yes please.

In the world of horror, I'm reading Deadlands, by Scott A. Johnson (who is a Texan, by the way, which might be of interest to some people here). I am mostly enjoying it. The world he describes is a very extreme example of post-apocalyptic America (it takes place in a completely devastated Arizona). The atmosphere and the entire surface of the Earth are incredibly irradiated and poisoned. Almost everyone is dead, as well as all trees, fish, grass, animals, etc, but there are a few settlements underground. Unfortunately, the underground settlements are getting overrun by the undead, so... hey, more fun times for everyone! Basically, the world the author has created here makes Cormac McCarthy's The Road look like Beverly Hills, or Monte Carlo. I'm about halfway through, I'll probably finish it tonight, it's short.

In the non-horror world, I'm reading Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines, by Richard Heinberg, which is actually probably even scarier than Deadlands because it's all real.

Regional Horror Films sounds really cool, by the way. I noticed a book in a bookstore recently called Horror Guide to Massachusetts, by David and Scott Goudsward... I'm gonna pick that puppy up the next time I'm in there.

A lot of horror set in Massachusetts? I guess it'll cover Lovecraft as most of his stuff is set there. Would like to read that. Thanks for the heads up!

Yup, no prob... Miskatonic was supposed to be in Massachusetts, so lots of his stories were set there (here, for me). Rhode Island was a common setting too. I have a cousin who lives within walking distance of the Scituate Reservoir in Rhode Island, which was the inspiration for the ending of his story The Colour Out Of Space. If you search on Amazon.com for Rhode Island Lovecraft, not in quotes, or (better) Rhode Island paranormal, not in quotes, there are several books about old legends, etc from Rhode Island. That state is comparable to Massachusetts in terms of age, colonial heritage, etc, so if you like old Massachusetts stories, Rhode Island could be interesting too.