How many books will win Oscars at the award ceremony on February 22? Here are the main contenders.
Alan Turing: the Enigma, Andrew Hodges
Film: The Imitation Game. Nominated for: Best Picture, Actor – in a Leading Role, Actress – in a Supporting Role, Directing, Film Editing, Music – Original Score, Production Design, Writing – Adapted Screenplay
Hodges is the biographer of the scientific genius Alan Turing (1912-1954). His book is a celebrated account of the amazing life and tragic death of the man who invented the modern computer and artificial intelligence.
Turing played a key role in breaking German Enigma ciphers during the second world war – but instead of being honoured for the rest of his life, he was cruelly persecuted for his homosexuality. The book, of course, delves as deeply into the mathematics of how Turing and his team cracked Enigma, the German code, as it does into the life of this tortured genius. If you like your maths, you’ll enjoy it more.
Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, Jane Hawking
Film: The Theory of Everything. Nominated for: Best Picture, Writing – Adapted Screenplay, Actress – in a Leading Role, Actor – in a Leading Role, Music – Original Score
This is an intimate portrayal of how Stephen and Jane Wilde met, and what it took for Jane to take care of the venerated physicist as his health began to fail because of motor neuron disease (ALS). His disability meant that he needed constant care, and Jane talks candidly about how much she struggled to do this, while the couple were also bringing up their three children.
It also chronicles their disastrous break-up, and their relationships with other people. Jane’s first book about life with her husband, Music to Move the Stars: A Life with Stephen, had been harsher, but this book, which came out in a revised version after Hawking and his second wife Elaine had divorced and the scientist had rebuilt his relationship with his first wife and children, became the basis for the film. The author, Hawking, and their children have all spoken of the film adaptation positively.
American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice
Film: American Sniper. Nominated for: Best Picture, Actor – in a Leading Role, Film Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Writing – Adapted Screenplay
The book and the film have been noted for significant differences, but essentially this is the memoir of an unabashedly nationalist US navy seal. Subsequent claims made by Kyle have been contested, throwing open the question of the veracity of the incidents detailed in the memoir. Of course, this ties in with the age-old question of the nature of memory and how identities are shaped around interpretations of the past.
Critics of the book have been uncomfortable with the violently racist tone in Kyle's work, and those of the film have spoken out against its simplistic portrayal of the complex realities of the Iraq war.
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed
Film: Wild. Nominated for: Actress – in a Leading Role, Actress – in a Supporting Role
This is the #1 New York Times bestselling memoir by Strayed, the warm and witty writer of the popular advice column Dear Sugar. Strayed suffered a terrible loss when she was only twenty-six. She lost her beloved mother to cancer, and broke up with her husband of six years. Deeply depressed, she undertook a 1,100 mile solo hike across the Pacific Crest Trail for two months.
Strayed's meditations on what it means to be a young woman, and her skillfully written depictions of her travels, grief, and sexuality have earned her many kudos.
Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
Film: Gone Girl. Nominated for: Actress – in a Leading Role
On their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne's wife Amy goes missing. Simultaneous accounts by the two protagonists: Nick's from the present, and Amy's from the past via journal entries, reveal two very different accounts of their marriage.
Nick is suspected of having a hand in his wife's disappearance. Halfway into the book, the plot turns on its head in an unexpected way. Flynn's bestselling thriller was made into a chilling film, with Rosamund Pike being nominated for her excellent portrayal of Amy.
Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon
Film: Inherent Vice. Nominated for: Costume Design, Writing – Adapted Screenplay
Widely hailed as one of the definitive novels about the 1960s counterculture in the USA. It chronicles the end of an era with dark humour. The detective-protagonist is the pot-addled, rock-obsessed Larry "Doc" Sportello. Doc's long-lost ex-girlfriend, Shasta Fay Hepworth, appears out of nowhere and tells him about a kidnapping plot against her billionaire boyfriend, Mickey Wolfmann.
The elusive Pynchon has himself approved of Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation of his sprawling book.
Alan Turing: the Enigma, Andrew Hodges
Film: The Imitation Game. Nominated for: Best Picture, Actor – in a Leading Role, Actress – in a Supporting Role, Directing, Film Editing, Music – Original Score, Production Design, Writing – Adapted Screenplay
Hodges is the biographer of the scientific genius Alan Turing (1912-1954). His book is a celebrated account of the amazing life and tragic death of the man who invented the modern computer and artificial intelligence.
Turing played a key role in breaking German Enigma ciphers during the second world war – but instead of being honoured for the rest of his life, he was cruelly persecuted for his homosexuality. The book, of course, delves as deeply into the mathematics of how Turing and his team cracked Enigma, the German code, as it does into the life of this tortured genius. If you like your maths, you’ll enjoy it more.
Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, Jane Hawking
Film: The Theory of Everything. Nominated for: Best Picture, Writing – Adapted Screenplay, Actress – in a Leading Role, Actor – in a Leading Role, Music – Original Score
This is an intimate portrayal of how Stephen and Jane Wilde met, and what it took for Jane to take care of the venerated physicist as his health began to fail because of motor neuron disease (ALS). His disability meant that he needed constant care, and Jane talks candidly about how much she struggled to do this, while the couple were also bringing up their three children.
It also chronicles their disastrous break-up, and their relationships with other people. Jane’s first book about life with her husband, Music to Move the Stars: A Life with Stephen, had been harsher, but this book, which came out in a revised version after Hawking and his second wife Elaine had divorced and the scientist had rebuilt his relationship with his first wife and children, became the basis for the film. The author, Hawking, and their children have all spoken of the film adaptation positively.
American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice
Film: American Sniper. Nominated for: Best Picture, Actor – in a Leading Role, Film Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Writing – Adapted Screenplay
The book and the film have been noted for significant differences, but essentially this is the memoir of an unabashedly nationalist US navy seal. Subsequent claims made by Kyle have been contested, throwing open the question of the veracity of the incidents detailed in the memoir. Of course, this ties in with the age-old question of the nature of memory and how identities are shaped around interpretations of the past.
Critics of the book have been uncomfortable with the violently racist tone in Kyle's work, and those of the film have spoken out against its simplistic portrayal of the complex realities of the Iraq war.
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed
Film: Wild. Nominated for: Actress – in a Leading Role, Actress – in a Supporting Role
This is the #1 New York Times bestselling memoir by Strayed, the warm and witty writer of the popular advice column Dear Sugar. Strayed suffered a terrible loss when she was only twenty-six. She lost her beloved mother to cancer, and broke up with her husband of six years. Deeply depressed, she undertook a 1,100 mile solo hike across the Pacific Crest Trail for two months.
Strayed's meditations on what it means to be a young woman, and her skillfully written depictions of her travels, grief, and sexuality have earned her many kudos.
Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
Film: Gone Girl. Nominated for: Actress – in a Leading Role
On their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne's wife Amy goes missing. Simultaneous accounts by the two protagonists: Nick's from the present, and Amy's from the past via journal entries, reveal two very different accounts of their marriage.
Nick is suspected of having a hand in his wife's disappearance. Halfway into the book, the plot turns on its head in an unexpected way. Flynn's bestselling thriller was made into a chilling film, with Rosamund Pike being nominated for her excellent portrayal of Amy.
Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon
Film: Inherent Vice. Nominated for: Costume Design, Writing – Adapted Screenplay
Widely hailed as one of the definitive novels about the 1960s counterculture in the USA. It chronicles the end of an era with dark humour. The detective-protagonist is the pot-addled, rock-obsessed Larry "Doc" Sportello. Doc's long-lost ex-girlfriend, Shasta Fay Hepworth, appears out of nowhere and tells him about a kidnapping plot against her billionaire boyfriend, Mickey Wolfmann.
The elusive Pynchon has himself approved of Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation of his sprawling book.
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