Dani, I am with you. Overall I enjoyed the book, with some reservations. It had some problems but overall I thought the mental imagery to be superb.

I find it to not be useful to judge a movie based on casting. I prefer to see it and then judge the way the roles were played. Kidman and Zellweger certainly have strong women roles in them, it remains to be seen what they will do with these characters.

So much will depend on the screenplay. That is where the letdown usually comes for me. This book demands that you want to follow it where it is leading. That is what makes it a bit of a hard read. Those types of works are very difficult to translate into a screenplay. When done right, they are superb. More often than not they fail. I am hopeful that I will be happy, but I don't expect it.

Tim O'Brien.....Songs from the Mountain......does it get any better than this? His rendition of Hard Times, despite not being long enough, might be as good as it gets. Same with Angel Band.

All the best,

Mick