I'll personally vouch that you should have gotten Life of Pi instead of Don Quixote or Coraline.  Both of them are good, of course, but Life of Pi is much better.

Kudos on Ender's Game.  It spent a five year stretch as my "favorite book", until I finally stopped having a single favorite book, and just tried to decide whether I liked them or not.

It saddens me that they're making a movie of Ender's Game.  The book's author is adapting the book to the screenplay, which in most cases might seem good.  Unfortunately, Card's later works are all pure crap, and everything I've heard about the movie indicates that it will suffer the same fate.

So once the movie comes out, any mention of Ender's Game will bring with it the response, "Ender's Game? Wasn't it that crappy sci fi movie a few years back?" and all credibility will have been lost.

I'm totally posting too many comments.

When I bought my copy of The Wars, I took it home, and found that it had been signed by Timothy Findley (like, with a real pen using real ink).  I thought it was extremely cool and special.  But it turns out that it's pretty normal for authors to sign a whole bunch of copies and have them randomly distributed, just as a kind of special prize for the buyers.

Unfortunately, I didn't like the book very much.  But I'm really not partial to war stories.  I'd recommend Not Wanted on the Voyage, instead.

I disagree about Ender's potential loss of credibility.  There have been tons of crappy movies made out of Heinlein's novels, and they still maintain credibility among people who actually realize that there is a book.

People who have actually read the novel will continue to give it the credit it deserves.  People who only see the movie will quite likely never realize that it was based on a book.  (Who knows?  Maybe for people who read the book because they saw the movie, the book will seem that much better when compared to the movie. : ) )

Posted by Nancy at 7 Fructidor CCXI 00:38 (2003/08/24)

Actually, I'd be more concerned with the casting.  Ender's Game will involve some very heavy material to be performed by mostly very young children.  It'll be tough to find kids who can do it justice.

Posted by Nancy at 7 Fructidor CCXI 00:40 (2003/08/24)

God, I hope they don't cast actors who are grossly older than the kids in the novel.  It's awful when that happens, and the youth of the characters is a pretty significant plot point.

Posted by Nancy at 7 Fructidor CCXI 00:44 (2003/08/24)

They're making major changes to the plot and characters.  I would be rather surprised if they actually cast a six-to-eight year old as Ender, or if his character is even supposed to be that young.  In my opinion, age isn't a major issue, though.  I certainly never pictured his character that young, even though he was.  It was just too unrealistic for me.  I always felt Ender should have been 12.

And my point wasn't that people who've read the book will think less of it.  It's that it would discourage people from reading the book.  If I tell someone they should definitely read Ender's Game, and they associate it with an awful movie they've seen, they're less likely to read it.

Although the point about Heinlein is appropriate.  Even though Starship Troopers was bad, it probably did make more people read the book than would have without the movie.

Well, Don Quixote is one I picked up near the start of the summer that I just haven't gotten around to reading.  Coraline was kept instead of Life of Pi because, regardless of what the website says the sale price was, no discount was advertised at the store and when it comes to $8.99 vs. $21.00, $8.99 wins.  As for Findley, I think I read Not Wanted On the Voyage a while back. If it's the one with Noah and the unicorn in it then I thoroughly enjoyed it.

As I've never read Ender's Game, I can't comment on the upcomming film version.  All I can add is from a purely asthetic point of view, and that's that I don't like book covers with 'Now a Major Motion Picture' emblazoned on them.  For example, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 1 (Chapters has placed their graphics novels next to the science fiction in Fredericton.  They've also placed the fantasy novels next to the romance; I'm sure there's some hidden commentary in that.) has that stamped on the cover now. In my opinion it just mars the artowrk and, from what I've heard of the film, it's not likely to get anyone to want to buy it.

Errrr... I think I may have gone off on a tangent there.

Posted by g026r at 7 Fructidor CCXI 16:03 (2003/08/24)

Yes, there are three things that are apt to make me not buy a book that I want: having a 'Sale!' sticker stuck directly to the cover, replacing the cover artwork with movie artwork (or any other mention of 'Now a major motion picture!'), and having 'Oprah's Book Club' imprinted on the cover.

Furthermore, I've never met anyone who thinks any of these things are acceptable.  Sure, the average person who just buys a book every now and then may not care.  But the publishing execs must know that the juiciest market -- people who think it's okay to pay $20 for a paperback, and do so frequently -- hate those things, and so I don't see why they choose to alienate their market like that.

I think part of that may be that those people are quite likely to continue shelling out $20 for a paperback regardless of the cover.

I mean, if you're looking for a book and the only copy you can find has one of those three things on the cover, are you likely to put it back and not buy it?  Most people I know won't. 
On the other hand, if you find two copies, one's $9.95 and has that stuff on it, the other's $20 but has a nicer cover, which are you more likely to pick up?  My guess is that it probably will be the more expensive copy.

On the other hand, there's a whole group of people who get their reading recommendations based on movies or even (ugh) Oprah.  The sudden surge in sales once a book is mentioned on her show is enough to prove this.  So really, the publishers aren't selling to people like you, they'll buy regardless of whether the book is tied in to some major pop culture icon/phenomenom—instead they're selling to people who wouldn't normally buy books.

Posted by g026r at 7 Fructidor CCXI 18:33 (2003/08/24)

Actually, there have been many instances where I haven't bought books because of those three things.  Or I've at least waited substantial amounts of time looking for a better copy.

Well, actually, I'll normally forgive the sticker on the cover -- a little patience will normally get those things off with very little trace.  A movie cover *might* be forgiveable; it depends on how much I actually care about the book.  An 'Oprah's Book Club' logo is totally unforgiveable; I will never buy a book with that logo on the cover, which is unfortunate, because probably a significant number of those books are actually good.

I assumed my fellow book-buyers would be as picky, but I guess based on your assumption that I might be in a minority.

As you said, these are just assumptions.  However, the fact that you'll keep searching for another copy of the book rather than forgetting about it entirely shows, at least in my opion, that although they may be irritating you, they aren't actually losing their core customer base by doing this.

As for me, a sticker I can deal with; Chapter's at least has started using stickers that come off easily anyways.  Movie cover's I can deal with as well; I'll pick a better one if available, but if not I won't pass up a copy with that on the cover.

However, Oprah is, as you say, unforgivable.  I don't have any books with her name mentioned anywhere, and I'm planning on keeping it that way.

Posted by g026r at 7 Fructidor CCXI 23:03 (2003/08/24)

1) Sale sticker - I am more likely to buy a book if there is a sale sticker on it, since usually sale stickers mean I can get hard cover books (which I prefer) for less than the flimsy paper back edition.  Since I can usually get the stickers off (at worst, with a little goo-gone), it's a win-win situation.

2) Movie covers - These really bug me, but still aren't enough to keep me from buying the book.  I'd gladly shell out extra to get an edition with a nicer cover, but if there's no alternative I'll pick up the movie covered one.  At the same time, off the top of my head I can only think of two books I've got with movie covers: Cider House Rules and Bridget Jones' Diary.  BJD was a gift, and CHR I'll forgive because a) all the other John Irving paperbacks I've seen are not exactly impressive with the cover art anyway, and b) Tobey Maguire is hot.  ; )

3)  I'm not sure I've ever read a book with an Oprah thing on the cover.  My major turnoff with the sticker is due to my mental association between 'Oprah' and 'shows my mother watches'.  I think a recommendation from someone whose taste in books I respect would be sufficient to get me to at least consider reading one of these books in spite of the sticker.

Posted by Nancy at 8 Fructidor CCXI 02:16 (2003/08/25)

On that note: Peter, I seem to recall you recommending 'Fall On Your Knees' to me at some point, specifically in spite of the Oprah book club thing on the cover.  : )

Posted by Nancy at 8 Fructidor CCXI 02:19 (2003/08/25)

God, am I glad I picked up Mists of Avalon before they stuck the stupid 'Now a Major Mini-Series from Whoever!' thing on the cover.

Posted by Nancy at 8 Fructidor CCXI 02:20 (2003/08/25)

Nancy:  You'll note in a previous comment I said "I will never buy a book with that logo on the cover, which is unfortunate, because probably a significant number of those books are actually good."

Oprah isn't an idiot, and just because she likes a book doesn't mean it's a bad book.  "Fall on your Knees" was an excellent book.  I've also been shopping around for a copy of I Know This Much is True that doesn't have an Oprah logo on it.

There's been at least one author, Jonathan Franzen for The Corrections, who refused to be in the Oprah book club because he didn't want the negative connotations associated with it.  That alone makes me want to read that book.