Books on the Big Screen

A surprise success (and recipient of a lot of Oscar buzz) is Julian Schnabel’s “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” based on a memoir by the late Jean-Dominique Bauby. Originally published in France in 1997, the book tells the story of a man rendered completely paralyzed by a stroke except for the ability to blink his left eye.

“There Will Be Blood,” directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, has also been mentioned as a probable Oscar contender for Daniel Day Lewis’ portrayal of a fallen Texas oil tycoon. The movie is based on the 1927 novel “Oil!” by Upton Sinclair.

Other recent films that have garnered Oscar-caliber praise include “Atonement,” based on the 2001 novel of the same title by British writer Ian McEwan; and “No Country for Old Men,” based on Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel about a drug deal gone wrong.

Francis Ford Coppola’s first directorial effort in 10 years is “Youth Without Youth,” based on a novella by Mircea Eliade, the late scholar best known for his works on religion. The book was originally published in 1976 and is being reissued by the University of Chicago Press with a new forward by Coppola.

The new year began on a creepy note with “One Missed Call,” based on a Japanese film that is itself based on a novel by Yasushi Akimoto, “Chakushin ari.” The English-language version of the story, which concerns people who get cell phone calls from their dead selves in the future, is published by Milwaukee, Ore.-based Dark Horse Comics.

Finally, we have “Charlie Wilson’s War,” a dramatization of journalist George Crile’s 2003 nonfiction work about a playboy congressman who gets serious when it comes to funding a covert war in Afghanistan—a fitting way to bookmark a list that began with “The Kite Runner.”