This may seem a bit odd, but I was curious about what people like to read. (Yes, I'm a bookworm :D ) Is there any genre that particularly captures the interest? Any type of story is welcome. I'm partial to an extremely small seletion of graphic novels, and anything that contains intrigue and adventure.

Anyone feel like sharing?

A dream project of mine is a television series I hope to develop called FORBIDDEN FAIRY TALES. Think MASTERS OF HORROR or TALES OF THE CRYPT meets Shelley Duvall's FAERIE TALE THEATRE... featuring such episodes as Snow White, Eat Your Heart Out... Sleeping Beast... Sinderella... The Three Little Pigs That Ruled A Nation etc. etc. etc. What can I say? I love fairy tales

I read a lot of romance novels, because I'm a college girl and people buy them for me... mostly ones about vampires.

In high school, I read a whole bunch of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles.

I loved the book "Party Monster" by James St. James.

I read "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult recently. Also: Mary Reilly, Lord of the Flies, Girl Interrupted, Breakfast On Pluto, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Amadeus, Angels in America, LOTS of Oscar Wilde plays and The Picture of Dorian Gray.

And my favorite book of all time is "Less Than Zero" by Bret Easton Ellis.

So basically, anything and everything...

My current absolute favorite is Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, and the Da Vinci Code. NO I HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE YET, so no one say anything about it! Or if you do, just warn me first.

Well, my favorite book of all time is....

"Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (bet you guys couldn't guess that ;) ) It's an amzing and beautiful novel; I've never viewed it as a horror or science fiction story, but as a larger than life, tragic fairy tale about parental responisibilty.

Victor Frankenstein, in the novel, is portrayed as the ultimate dysfunctional parent, I think, selfish and unaware of the emotional needs of the people around him, including his family, Elizabeth, and most of all, his creation, the Creature, who really is the hero of the story.

Most film versions really try to push this moral on you about "not toying with nature," but I think that really is a very secondary theme in the novel. If you haven't read this book, read it now!!! :D The movies just cheapen it most of the time by making the Creature a muderous, grunting brute, while in the novel he's even more articulate and HUMAN than his creator!!!

Alright, enough raving... :D

I also love the poetry of Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, anything by Victor Hugo, Fyodor Dostoevsky or Vladimir Nabokov... And of course Bram Stoker's "Dracula" is one of my favorites as well.

EDIT: I'll also read anything by Shakespeare; my favorite is "Hamlet," though I also love "Titus Andronicus" and "Love's Labour's Lost" (two very underrated plays) greatly.

I also like Frank Herbert's AMAZING "Dune" series, the original novel is the definitely the single greates science fiction novel ever written.

Oh, and also Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" ("The Golden Compass," aka "Northern Light," "The Subtle Knife," and "The Amber Spyglass."

I've read many fairy tales, some popular, others that aren't that well known.

I'm an avid reader of Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter. I'm also a fan of Dan Brown's "Angels & Demons" and "DaVinci Code" (I'm more inclined to the first).

Some classic works I have enjoyed are "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "Frankenstein", "Notre Dame de Paris", "Jekyll & Hyde", "Dracula", and "Phantom of the Opera". Oh, and Edgar Allen Poe. Gotta love Poe. :)

My small collection of graphic novels consists of the "Sin City" series by Frank Miller, and "The Crow" by James O'Bar. The Crow was such an intense, heart wrenching tale of anguish, love lost, and revenge that I was in tears by the end. It was the most painful and beautiful stories I have ever read. I highly recommend it.

LOL, Poe ROCKS... can't believe I didn't mention him. :blink:

Have you ever read Frank Miller's "Batman" graphic novels? "Batman: Year One" and "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns"? Miller is a genius; he's the one responsible, with these two books, for bringing really Batman back to his roots as a dark, gritty and realistic character, not the campy stupid one we saw in the 50's and 60's. Both of the books are AMAZING; my favorite comics of all time. :D

I've never read "Sin City" though, or "The Crow" *shame faced* I definitely will though; I've been wanting to. :)

Also, kudos to you for calling "Notre-Dame de Paris" by it's proper name. I can't stand calling it "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame" as most people do... the main character isn't really Quasimodo, but the cathedral itself. No film version has ever got this a cross, and cuts out most of the smaller characters, like Gringoire, to focus on the trio of Quasiomodo, Frollo and Esmeralda.

I've always wanted to write a musical version of Hugo's novel, and actually wrote some songs for it, but i gave up when I realized how many musical versions there already were... But I re-used some of the songs I did for that in "Electricity" (the new title of my Frankenstein musical... it was the producer's desicion, not mine, but I like it, LOL)

He also re-wrote lyrics, OUCH! :blink:

I didn't like "Notre Dame De Paris" by Richard Cocciante and Luc Plamondon (HIS latest effort was "The Ten Commandments" starring Val Kilmer :blink: It's, IMO, the worst thing I've ever seen in my life with the exception of David Hasselhoff in "Jekyll & Hyde" and the Broadway "Dance Of The Vampires". Just... OUCH! OUCH!). The English translation with Will Jennings' lyrics was... scar-worthy. I'm sorry, but God, scar-worthy.

You should know about Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame re-written as a serious gothic opera in Germany. This featured new songs, in addition to the film, by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz and book by the legendary James Lapine. Lapine, for those of who you don't know, wrote the book on Stephen Sondheim's "Sunday In The Park With George" and "Into The Woods". One of my heroes!

The German "Hunchback" would have been, undoubtedly, Disney's biggest hit since "The Lion King" on Broadway. It was different, it was new, it was... DARK. And they should have made the transfer

I think there are other versions, of course there would be other versions, but out of all of them I like the Disney German one. I can't STAND the first one, and the French LITERALLY use backing tracks onstage. They don't even have a live orchestra! Now I hear they're pre-recording vocals. What a rip-off! If I wanted to listen to a CD I'd stay at home, not pay over $100 for the same thing. But they're doing it, alas.

LOL, well, the lyrics he's re-written have remained very close to my originals, and retain a lot of my material and ideas, so I'm okay with it.

LOL, I must agree, Will Jennings' lyrics for the English version of "Notre-Dame de Paris" are a nightmare.. the original French lyrics are much better, as is the same case with "Les Miserables."

Let's see, besides Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame" musical, and "Notre-Dame de Paris, I know of at least others:

"Hunchback: A Rock Opera, " "Notre-Dame," "The Bellringer of Notre-Dame," "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (there's at least two others with this title)... There's probably more..., lol

LOL see I told you. I've lost count of all the Draculas, Phantoms and Jekylls. And as irony goes, I am working on versions of each of them :unsure: But two of them weren't my projects, I was called in by someone else sort-of as a work opportunity (three years later it's been like a drawn-out episode of Jerry Springer. No, I take that back, it makes Jerry look like Enya)

No one, please, take this the wrong way, and I know it's rude to put people into the same bag, but let's picture this... "O.K. We're gonna do a musical. Straight with me? Because if you don't want to do a musical I'll go my way and you'll go yours. O.K. Hmmm... What's the musical gonna be? Ohhhh, I've got an idea. Let's do a musical of DRACULA! Yeeeah, lets. But wait... wait JUST a moment. Hasn't that already been done before? Yeah, yeah, yeah, millions of people have seen it on Broadway, it's the most popular musical of all time but it's not correct. It's not politically correct in terms of the novel so let's do it anyway because ours is more traditional and people would rather see a more traditional version, besides we'll write better music." Not to say that the music isn't a masterpiece, I'm sure it's absolutely phenomenal, but...

"O.K. Now that we've done it. Let's take it to a producer." Six months later. "No luck, let's take it to the studio and do a..." DA! DA! DAAAAA!!!! *DRUMROLL* "A CONCEPT ALBUM!!! Yep!!! It's been done before a million times. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice were pulled out of the doldrums when they did Superstar (and for our next musical we'll make it MOSES & THE AMAZING TEN COMMANDMENTS) and then they did Evita, Frank Wildhorn did Jekyll & Hyde and then he did The Scarlet Pimpernel. And then... And then..." HUMBUG! It's all been done before!!

I really didn't direct this post to be anything derogatory, and yet it (inherently) comes across that way, it's just the way I see things. While I will go around and check out all these versions, most people won't. The key to doing a good show is to make it different from everything else and to market it TOTALLY DIFFERENT and not yet another concept album, not yet another faithful adaptation etc.

But back to the topic :blink: I conveniently happen to be a fan of "Dracula" by Bram Stoker, "The Phantom of the Opera" by Gaston Leroux and many other books that a squadron of emerging writers have battled it out over adapting into the musical medium.

Unfortunately I haven't. I wasn't aware he even made a graphic novel of Batman. I'm still new to the graphic novel genre. I'll have to hunt them down and give them a look. Especially now, since I am lacking a good read. :(