The Buzz...About Books

The movie Hidden Figures is having an incredible awards season. It has already won'the Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and has been nominated for many other awards, including two Golden Globe Awards and three Oscars.

If you have wondered why you haven't heard about the book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians who Helped Win the Space Race until recently, it is because Lee Shetterly sold the movie rights while she was still working it. The book was published in December 2016, only a month before the movie was released.  

Hidden Figures is the inspiring true story of a group of dedicated female mathematicians who calculated the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women.  They were called into service during World War II, when America's aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right skills.  Even as Virginia's Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and others helped America achieve its dream of space flight.  The film is in theatres now. 
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Lucky for those of us who prefer to read a book well before watching its film adaptation, the rest of the films based on books coming out in the next few months are inspired by books that have been available for several years. If you have not read them yet, place your holds today. 

Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach 
Tulip Fever is by the author of the These Foolish Things, which was made into the film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Tulip Fever is set in 1630s Amsterdam, in the midst of tulipomania. A wealthly merchange, Cornelis Sandvoort, is smitten by Sophia, his young wife. When he commissions a portrait of them both by the talented young painter Jan van Loos, a romance blossoms between Sophia and van Loos which leads to tragic consequences. The film is scheduled to be released on February 24, 2017.
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The Shack by William P. Young 
During a family vacation, Mack’s youngest daughter, Missy, is abducted and brutally murdered in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later, Mack receives a note, apparen'tly from God, inviting him back to that shack. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change his life forever. The film is scheduled for released on March 3rd, 2017.
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Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman
After German bombers devastated Warsaw City Zoo and killed most of the animals, zookeepers and resistance activists Jan and Antonina Zabinski worked to save the lives of hundreds of Jewish citizens by smuggling them into empty cages at the zoo and into their home. The film is scheduled for released on March 31st, 2017.
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Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann 
In 1925, English explorer Percy Fawcett set off into the Amazon and disappeared. When Grann sets out to solve the mystery of Fawcett's fate, his own adventure is greater than he expected. The film is scheduled for release on April 21, 2017.
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The Circle by Dave Eggers
When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful Internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. As she is seduced by the new technologies, the Circle is developing, and even her closest friends and family suspect the Circle is going too far in its desire to make the world a better, safer, more honest place. The film is scheduled for release on April 28, 2017.
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