The snow’s not quite falling yet, but it won’t be long. Ready to cozy up by the fire (or the heating vent/radiator/space heater, you do you) with a good book as the flakes fly? Us, too. Start with these stories, then venture into the cold long enough to see them on screen later this month.
“Lion,” originally published as “A Long Way Home: A Memoir”
By Saroo Brierley
$16, New American Library
If this story was a work of fiction, it would be scoffed at as too wild to be true, but it’s completely real and completely amazing. At 5 years old, Brierley wandered aboard a train and ended up hopelessly lost, far from his small Indian town; at 30, after being adopted and raised in Australia, he used Google Earth and other tools to find his way home. Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman and Rooney Mara star in the film, due out Dec. 9.
“A Monster Calls”
Idea by Siobhan Dowd, book by Patrick Ness
$9.99, Candlewick
Don’t be fooled by its creepy cover: This fantasy drama is more heart-breaking than hair-raising. While dealing with nightmares, bullies and his mother’s terminal illness, a young boy meets a humanoid tree who tries to help him start to heal. The film, due out Dec. 23, features Sigourney Weaver as the boy’s grandmother, Felicity Jones as his mom and Liam Neeson as the voice of the titular monster.
“Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathemeticians Who Helped Win the Space Race”
By Margot Lee Shetterly
$15.99, William Morrow
The excitement of the Space Race made household names of its astronaut heroes: John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin. Now it’s time for the world to learn the names Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, three black women who were among the female mathematicians known as “human computers” whose careful calculations made those space flights possible. Meet them in Shetterly’s nonfiction book, then catch the Hollywood version starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae, due out Dec. 25.
“Fences”
By August Wilson
$14, Plume
OK, we’re cheating a bit here: This film started not as a book but as a Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play. It tells the story of Troy Maxson, a onetime baseball player now working as a trash collector, and his family as they face various struggles in 1950s Pittsburgh. Denzel Washington and Viola Davis won Tony Awards as Troy and his wife, Rose, in a 2010 Broadway revival of the play, and they reprise their roles in the film, due out Dec. 25.
@gauxmargaux | mhenquinet@redeyechicago.com
