At the end of December my sister-in-law, who works for 4D, Publicis Groupe/Disney said that after War Horse, Disney’s next big movie will be “John Carter”. I said, “I loved that book!” (John Carter is the main character, but the books he is in are ‘A Princess in Mars,’ ‘The Gods of Mars’ and ‘Warlord of Mars’ and several more that are now available on Librivox that were not there before.) She was a bit shocked, not because it was technically a boy’s, war, sci-fi book, but that it is a very old book and she had never met anyone who had even heard of it before. Well, as of February 5th – due to it’s Super Bowl commercials – millions more know about it!
And why had I read it? As some of you who read my blog know – I listen to books on-line. But before I found the Greater Phoenix Digital Library http://phoenix.lib.overdrive.com/26FD75C1-B31F-4378-980F-30657F7D0006/10/288/en/Default.htm I used to listen to http://www.librivox.org/. All of those books are in the Public Domain, meaning that the copyright has run out, the book usually being over 100 years old. I have decided this is how Hollywood is trying to save a little money in the current market!
Public domain also means they only have to pay a script writer – not the author AND a scriptwriter. This is how I also had read the book The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – which was a horrible short story and I almost refused to see it, even though my brother and sister in law were visiting and had first right to choose as guests. The movie was so much better and I’m glad I saw it. I’m including the link here if you are curious, partly because it’s part of a collection of short stories that includes other better stories and partly because the author is F. Scott Fitzgerald.
http://librivox.org/selected-short-stories-by-f-scott-fitzgerald/
Public domain also means they only have to pay a script writer – not the author AND a scriptwriter. This is how I also had read the book The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – which was a horrible short story and I almost refused to see it, even though my brother and sister in law were visiting and had first right to choose as guests. The movie was so much better and I’m glad I saw it. I’m including the link here if you are curious, partly because it’s part of a collection of short stories that includes other better stories and partly because the author is F. Scott Fitzgerald.http://librivox.org/selected-short-stories-by-f-scott-fitzgerald/
Again, if you don’t want to listen but would rather read – find it here.
And, following that loose line of thought, because I am going to see a play by F. Scott Fitzgerald at the Herberger Theater in Phoenix this March – The Great Gatsby. (A much, much better story!) See To Do in Arizona - Planning Ahead for March 2012.
Back to John Carter. The odd thing about people never hearing of the Barsoom (a dying Mars) Series and John Carter is that the author is Edgar Rice Burroughs – who also wrote a series about (drumroll please) Tarzan. All stories by Burroughs on Librivox click here: If you don’t want to listen but would rather read – find it here.
Learn about the Barsoom Series and John Carter on Wikipedia click here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barsoom
Here’s a chance to win tickets to the NFL after watching the preview and getting the “secret code”: http://www.nfl.com/johncarter Posted by Heather J. Kirk
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