Reel Reading

After a flurry of book-to-movie success last winter (Cider House Rules, Angela's Ashes), the trend continues into the summer blockbuster season. While you're waiting for Harry Potter and Bridget Jones to make their screen debuts, check out the books and special tie-ins from the summer's most popular movies.

Chicken Run

A flock of books is available for youngsters who didn't get enough of their feathered friends in the movie. Check out Ginger's plans to fly the coop in Chicken Run or more crazy exploits in Chicken Run Cutting Loose: Behind the Fences at Tweedy's Farm. If you're wondering how anyone could make a whole movie from clay chickens, read Chicken Run: Hatching the Movie.

    Chicken Run
    Dreamworks, $7.99
    ISBN 0525464204

    Chicken Run Cutting Loose:
    Behind the Fences at Tweedy's Farm

    Dreamworks, $7.99
    ISBN 0141308788

    Chicken Run:
    Hatching the Movie

    Harry N. Abrams, $35
    ISBN 0810941244



The Patriot

The Patriot provides the novelization of the blockbuster Mel Gibson film, and The Patriot: The Official Companion takes you behind the scenes with in-depth interviews with the cast, director, and producers, and information on how the Smithsonian Institution helped oversee the production for historical accuracy.

    The Patriot
    Harper Entertainment, $6.99
    ISBN 006102076

    The Patriot:
    The Official Companion

    Carlton Books, $19.95
    ISBN 1842220764



The Perfect Storm

Sebastian Junger's novel, The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea, a tale of a doomed ship caught in the middle of what some meteorologists have called the storm of thecentury, was a hit on the shelves and in theaters. You may know the ending already, but the descriptions of storm formation, wave physics, and the terror of drowning are still fascinating.

    The Perfect Storm:
    A True Story of Men Against the Sea

    By Sebastian Junger
    Harper, $6.99
    ISBN 006101351X


The Last Days of Disco

And in the going-against-the-stream category comes Whit Stillman, who took his witty movie, The Last Days of Disco, fleshed it out, and made it into a book. The Last Days of Disco, With Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards looks at the last months of the disco era, following a group of new to Manhattan guys and gals and the popular dance club that becomes the center of their nightlife.

    The Last Days of Disco,
    With Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards

    By Whit Stillman
    Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $23
    ISBN 0374183392



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