More Books to Film 2013

Last week I posted about recent new film releases based on books.
Here are few more examples that will be released in theatres sometime later in the year:

Serena (M) – author Ron Rash, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Copper

"*Starred Review* Rash's short stories and previous novels are all set in Appalachia and enriched by the region's unique history. This is his most gripping work yet, a sweeping saga of unfathomable greed and revenge that grabs the reader's attention from the first page. The Depression-era tale is centered on newly married George and Serena Pemberton, owners of a logging company in the mountains of North Carolina. Their operation is aimed strictly at maximizing profits, with no regard for either the safety of their workers or the future of the land they're pillaging. 

The tragic result of environmental disregard looms large in all of Rash's fiction, and the Pembertons are his worst villains to date in that respect leaving behind a wasteland of stumps and slash and creeks awash with dead trout. Side plots involve the drastic means, including murder, the couple employs to avoid losing land to environmental groups and Serena's unflagging pursuit of the young girl who bore George's son shortly after he and Serena were married. With a setting fraught with danger, and a character maniacal in her march toward domination and riches, Serena is a novel not soon forgotten." -Booklist

The Wolf of Wall Street (M) - author Jordan Belfort, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill and Matthew McConaughey

"By day he made thousands of dollars a minute. By night he spent it as fast as he could, on drugs, sex, and international globe-trotting. From the binge that sank a 170-foot motor yacht, crashed a Gulfstream jet, and ran up a $700,000 hotel tab, to the wife and kids who waited for him at home, and the fast-talking, hard-partying young stockbrokers who called him king and did his bidding, here, in his own inimitable words, is the story of the ill-fated genius they called…" Publisher


Horns (M) -author Joe Hill (Stephen King's son) starring Daniel Radcliffe

"In bestseller Hill's compulsively readable supernatural thriller, his second after Heart-Shaped Box, dissolute Ignatius Perrish wakes up one morning to find a pair of satanic horns sprouting from his forehead. To the residents of Gideon, N.H., this grotesque disfigurement only confirms their suspicions that Ig raped and murdered his girlfriend, Merrin Williams, a crime for which he was held but soon released for lack of evidence. Ig is also now privy to the deepest, and often darkest, private thoughts of anyone he touches. Once Ig discovers through this uncanny sensitivity the true killer's identity, he schemes to reveal the culprit's guilt through natural means. Toggling between past and present, and incidents that range from the supernaturally surreal to the brutally realistic, Hill spins a story that's both morbidly amusing and emotionally resonant. The explanations for Ig's weird travails won't satisfy every reader, but few will dispute that Hill has negotiated the sophomore slump." Publisher Weekly

Devil's Knot: the true story of the Memphis Three (M) – author Mara Levereritt, starring Reese Witherspoon, Stephen Moyer and Colin Firth

"Arkansas Times investigative reporter Leveritt explores the 1993 West Memphis Three murder convictions, which have been the subject of two HBO documentaries. The book is arranged chronologically, from the crime through the trial, and dispassionately dissects the prosecution's case against three teens who were convicted of the grisly murders of three eight-year-old boys. Leveritt interviewed the principals, reviewed the police file and trial transcripts, and leads the reader to conclude from her exhaustive research (430 footnotes) that the case was botched, improperly based on a single confession from a retarded youth and the defendants' alleged ties to satanic rituals. Well written in descriptive language, the book is an indictment of a culture and legal system that failed to protect children as defendants or victims. Highly recommended." Library Journal